When
speaking of health damages caused by fireworks, most people think primarily of
burns, explosions as well as eye and ear damages.
Burn and
explosion sequences by fireworks cause sometimes lifelong distortions and
handicaps (CNN interactive, 4.7.1998 "Fireworks: Festive, but not
without risk"; picture of Louie Jones: http://www.cnn.com/HEALTH/9807/04/fireworks.safety/injured.jones.jpg
and "Fireworks Injuries" by Gary Schnitz, M.A., C.M.I.: http://www.indianahandcenter.com/hot_fire.html.
Denise Butler was hit in the face by a firework at a Premiership match in
England. You can watch pictures in the article "Agony of firework victim",
2.12.2003, under http://www.sky.com/skynews/article/0,,30100-12938392,00.html.
These pictures are showing how this accident happened.) The
most often injuries concern the hands: the injuries reach from simple burns and
breaks of the fingers up to torn off fingers.
Eye injuries caused by fireworks are often severe and can cause permanently reduced visual acuity or
blindness (FOCUS
On ... Eye Trauma from Fireworks by RICHMOND EYE ASSOCIATES under
Auditory
damages caused by fireworks:
Traumas
due to crackers and explosions of fireworks are caused by impulsive bangs (bangs
caused by high pressure blasts). The blast of exploding fireworks can reach more
than 130 dB; in the immediate vicinity of public fireworks top levels of up to
190 dB can be reached and around 150 dB at farther distances. (In comparison:
130 decibels are measured at a distance of 100 m from jet enginges; 160 or 170
decibels are louder than a pneumatic hammer.)
Many thousands of persons are subject in Germany each year to injuries of the ear interior due to cracker or explosion traumas. ("The incidence of acoustic trauma due to New Year's firecrackers", Stefan K.-R. Plontke, Klaus Dietz, Cornelius Pfeffer, Hans-Peter Zenner, Eur Arch Otorhinolaryngol (2002) 259: 247-252, DOI: 10.1007/s00405-002-0451-4)
Children:
Firework, crackers and rockets can injure children's ears permanently. An
explosion creates a blast trauma in the sensitive child ear which, besides the
initial damage, can end in lasting, non-reparable injuries.
Other health damages - which unfortunately remain often unmentioned - can be caused by chemicals used in fireworks.
Damages of the lungs: (please read also the sites "Fireworks and Asthma" and "Fireworks and fine dust/PM10")
According
to a study by the Swiss Agency for the Environment, Forests and Landscape (SAEFL) dated 1999, barium is able to <<damage the respiratory
organs (…) and to cause high pressure and lung diseases>>.
<<It
is recommended to people with respiratory illnesses and circulation deficiency
to avoid fireworks.>> (Swiss
Agency for the Environment, Forests and Landscape SAEFL, essay "Fireworks")
… We treat patients who (independently of allergies)
already suffer from an acquired high-grade intolerance1 that then leads to a specific,
hyper-responsive bronchial system and vascular system2 with the serious consequence
of specific, undifferentiated systemic mixed collagenoses with overlap
syndromes, caused in particular by pyrolysed products and (primarily the)
fine dust (they produce) (>>Particulate Matter<< PM
<4.5).
These patients must seal all doors and window gaps (though the results are never 100%)
with special tapes as early as December 30 this year, because considerable
indoor pollution also occurs as a result of the above-mentioned extremely
life-threatening explosions causing >>overexposure<< (in the external areas of the houses or flats),
that then leads to further serious inhalative intoxications in low doses ( = inhalation
trauma!) – with generalised neuro-endocrinal and immuno-vascular systemic
follow-up reactions. In this respect, the days around New Year almost always
pose a major health risk for these patients – and one that lasts for days and
weeks. …
1
Tilt syndrome
2
Generalised (tilt) vasculitis – with equally extreme intolerance to medication!
(Excerpt from letter from Dr. Gernot Schwinger M.D., Hochdorf, Germany, dated December 22, 2004 to the Bündnis 90/Die Grünen Parliamentary Coalition, re. New Year's fireworks 2004)
Today, it is well known that fireworks are mainly a fine dust problem.
A
rise of the PM10-concentration (fine dust) in the air by 10 µg/m3 only (ten micro gram per
-
symptoms in the respiratory tracts (cough, excessive flem, shortness of
breath)
-
bronchitis, asthma, arrhythmia
-
emergency visits to doctors and emergency rooms at hospitals
-
hospitalisation because of pneumonia, asthma attacks, cardiac disorder
and other
-
job absences with economic implications
-
and in the worst case, fatalities as a result of these diseases.
Fireworks can within short time create a fine dust load which exceeds by 30 times and more (!) the tolerated fine dust load!
The German Federal Agency for the Environment comments on this problem in a background paper of November 30, 2007, http://www.umweltbundesamt.de/luft/schadstoffe/downloads/silvester_pm10.pdf, and requests - as a contribution to the fine dust reduction - to diminish or even totally renounce privately using fireworks on New Year's Eve:
... The latest analyses by the German Federal
Environment Agency show that on New Year's Day, atmospheric pollution with fine
dust particles hazardous to health is in many places higher than at any other
time of year. PM10 hourly values of up to 4000 µg/m3 (4000 µg/m3
= 4000 microgrammes of PM10
per cubic metre of air) are no exception in major cities in the first hour of
the New Year. By way of comparison, the average PM10 concentration for 2006 at
urban measuring stations in Germany was around 30 µg/m3.
In
rural areas near to cities, the PM10 hourly values do not reach such peaks. But
as soon as the fine dust in the air has been transported by the wind from the
cities, the PM10 concentration in these areas also climbs to around 150 µg/m3.
It has been proved that breathing in
fine dust is hazardous to human health. For fine particles, there is no minimum
threshold below which no hazardous effects are to be expected. The effects range
from temporary impairment of the respiratory tract and an increased need for
medication by asthma sufferers to elevated levels of hospital admissions for
respiratory diseases and cardiovascular problems together with an increase in
the death rate. …
