Firework Injury

Newsletter 2024-07-01

I’m not a stickler for safety. My frequent hospital visits attest to that. I’m one surgery away from a free snow cone. Those lax standards only apply to me. I try to protect my kids as best I can—or as mediocre as I can. Nothing I do can ever be described as my “best.” At the very least, I discourage my kids from holding live explosives in their hands. It was with mild concern, then, that I received the report from my daughters Friday night. They rushed home to tell me the kids down the alley were setting off fireworks with their dad. My girls wanted to join in. I don’t want them to live in fear. I also don’t want them to grow up missing fingers. Based on the description given by my oldest daughter, Betsy, who knows literally nothing about fireworks because I never let her use them, it sounded like the neighborhood dad was setting off bottle rockets or Roman candles. I debated what to do. My kids could hear the gears turning. There were a few audible squeaks. Finally, I told my squad they couldn’t set anything off themselves, but they could get up close and watch—as long as they wore safety goggles. They’re meant for power tools, but we mostly use them for Nerf fights. My kids will never know what it’s like to be raised by an actual adult. My one-off attempt at good parenting didn’t make a difference. The worst injury of the summer was about to come.

I was well acquainted with the dangers of personal explosives. I grew up in Illinois, where most fireworks are illegal, which meant everybody had them. We weren’t far from Indiana, which was lined with giant firework warehouses ten feet across the border. It was part of the Hoosier State’s undeclared war against the Land of Lincoln. Indiana folks wanted us to blow ourselves up so they could swoop in and take our best farmland. Illinois officials did their best to stop the invasion. They bombarded the youths with scary news stories about kids who lost fingers having illicit Indiana-style fun. The scare tactics worked on me but not my peers. My brothers and their friends once sent me a video of a bunch of bottle rockets and a paper bag that they doused in gasoline and lit on fire. It’s amazing any teenage boys ever survive to adulthood.

I had a dangerous encounter of my own visiting relatives in Iowa. My cousins put on an amateur firework show on my aunt and uncle’s farm. Everybody gathered in front of the farmhouse a “safe” distance away, even though we were still well within firework range. After blowing several hundred dollars for what was probably an eight-minute show, our hosts had amassed a large pile of “duds.” Someone had the bright idea to toss them in a campfire. In case you were wondering, adding canisters of colorful gunpowder to an open flame is a bad idea. The very-not-dead fireworks blasted in every direction, including into the crowd. They nearly wiped out our entire family line. Everyone scrambled for cover. I made it to safety. Then I remembered I had a wife and baby, though only one of each at the time. After that night, it’s amazing Lola agreed to have kids with me. It all worked out. Lola (or my mom. Stories differ.) saved Betsy, and we all gained valuable wisdom. Fireworks are not to be trifled with. Also, that “women and children first” stuff is just for the movies. When the projectiles start flying, it’s every man (and woman and baby) for themselves.

Not every fireworks mishap ends so harmlessly. I knew a guy in college who wore an eye patch. I had too much tact to ask him about it but not enough to resist asking his friends. He took a bottle rocket to the eye when he was a kid. It gave him a distinctive look. He paired his eye patch with a rat tail, making him a Jedi Padawan pirate. Rumor had it he was irresistible to bar wenches and a certain galactic senator. Nonetheless, it wasn’t an image I wanted for myself or my children. That’s the main reason I sent them back down the alley wearing dorky safety glasses. Their friends might judge them now, but that might stop my kids from being judged in college.

I was surprised they wanted to go down the alley. They don’t have much experience with small fireworks, but they’ve always been terrified of the big ones. Every attempt to take them to public Fourth of July shows has ended in disaster. We can’t even park and watch them from the van. It’s still too loud. Now we observe from miles away through our third floor window. It’s a massive improvement. There’s no traffic or mosquitos, and thirty seconds after the last firework, we can all go to bed. Having cowardly children is a massive timesaver. My kids don’t even like sparklers. They’ve burned themselves too many times. There’s no upside to giving a small human a piece of wire the temperature of the sun. My girls had never been hurt by bottle rockets or Roman candles, though, so they didn’t know they should be afraid. I hoped uncool eyewear would be enough to save them from a painful epiphany. It almost worked.

Photo by Jordan Ling on Unsplash

The kids watched the other dad set off his small explosive supply Friday night. Nobody got injured. My children came home with the proper number of eyes and digits. I thought that was the end of it. I was naive. If you start your Fourth of July celebration on June 29th, you’ve already accepted that America’s birthday is a week-long extravaganza. Saturday night, my kids went down the alley again. This time they didn’t ask me. They didn’t need to. The other dad was in-between batches of fireworks. Nothing was being detonated that night, so no extra permissions were required. Instead, my girls offered to help clean up from the night before so they’d be ready for the next round later in the week. There were spent firework casings everywhere. Many of them were on a flatbed trailer. Somebody climbed up there to toss them off. That’s when disaster struck. No good deed goes unpunished, especially when children and fireworks are involved. 

The kid on the trailer accidentally released the ramp. It came crashing down on Lucy’s foot. My ten-year-old screamed. She was wearing tennis shoes. Even steel-toe boots wouldn’t have saved her. The end of the ramp landed in the middle of her foot. Lola and I were upstairs in our bedroom watching a movie. Betsy called Lola’s phone. That’s never a good sign when all your children are home. Betsy tried to explain to us what happened, but we couldn’t understand her. We went downstairs to find Lucy sprawled out on the couch like she’d suffered a Civil War battle wound. Lola and I debated who’s turn it was to drive to the emergency room. The key to a good marriage is keeping score.

We checked Lucy’s foot. She was able to move it in every direction. It didn’t appear to be broken. It just had a very nasty bruise. That was my initial diagnosis, anyway. I have a history of making the wrong call on medical emergencies. I once waited multiple days before taking my now twelve-year-old, Mae, to the hospital for what turned out to be a buckle fracture on her arm. Kids and monkey bars don’t mix. Keeping in mind the mistakes of the past, Lola and I gave Lucy our soundest medical advice: Put some ice on it, and get back to us in the morning. That’s when we’d figure out if the foot had to be amputated. Waiting solves any health crisis, unless it’s an abscess or an appendix, in which case it almost kills you.

The next morning, Lucy was the first of the kids to wake up. She came downstairs to get a fresh ice pack. Ice doesn’t have any healing properties in these situations. I strictly recommend it for the placebo effect. It works better than shrugging and telling a kid to do nothing. It’s one step removed from back when I used to kiss boo-boos to make them better. I examined Lucy’s foot. It still appeared to just have a bad bruise. She could walk on it fine. My immediate verdict was that I made the right call the night before. I’m obviously an impartial judge on this matter. Fingers crossed that the title of Friday’s newsletter isn’t “Lucy’s Broken Foot.” You can only have so many delayed fracture treatments before CPS starts asking questions.

I’ll never be able to protect my children from all the dangers of the world. Often, it’s the thing you least expect that actually hurts them. I didn’t know the real threat in firework season would be a trailer ramp. Regardless, I have to attempt to keep my daughters safe, if only in my half-hearted and ineffective way. I make them wear lifejackets, bike helmets, and safety goggles when the situation requires it. Now I need to add armored boots to that mix. If Lucy had been wearing full plate mail, that injury never would have happened. Unfortunately, it would have put her at greater risk of falling over and drowning in a puddle. I could mitigate that hazard by also forcing her to wear a life jacket. When combined with the safety goggles and bike helmet, she’d be utterly invincible. Or maybe I could let her live her life and deal with injuries as they pop up. That approach seems way easier. Let’s go with that.

Anyway, that’s all I’ve got for now. Catch you next time. 

James