Boy now sees
fireworks’ dangers

A January mishap with a
BB gun nearly cost
him his eyesight

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By Helen Altonn
haltonn@starbulletin.com

A 10-year-old boy and his cousin were shooting BB guns at a pile of refuse when it suddenly exploded, burning half of his eyebrow and eyelashes, singing his hair and embedding foreign material in his eyes.

The kids were playing at a relative's Waianae farm just after New Year's Eve last January, and the debris apparently contained still-live aerial fireworks, the boy's mother said, asking that the family not be identified.

"He's a lucky boy," said Dr. George Plechaty, ophthalmologist, who performed surgery Jan. 8 to try to remove the material from the boy's eyes.

Plechaty discussed the case in emphasizing a Hawaii Ophthalmology Society recommendation that adults and children attend professional fireworks displays rather than use them at home.

"The public should become aware and educated to the dangers of fireworks," he said.

He said the Hawaii organization stands behind the National Ophthalmology Society in advocating legislation to outlaw use of bottle rockets specifically and restrict use of less dangerous fireworks.

"I know some kid is going to get hurt (July 4)," he said. "I know it."

Plechaty said he recently saw the boy, now 11, whose eyes were injured when his BBs ignited fireworks that had been swept up in the rubbish. This time, he had an eye infection from a cat scratch.

The foreign material is still in his eyes, but he has 20/30 vision, and the metal grains are not causing any tissue reaction, Plechaty said.

He said he has no chemical analysis or knowledge of what the fireworks were made of. "I know that there are metallic products that are toxic to the eye, and apparently these are not in this class."

For example, stainless steel can rust and copper oxidizes, so both are bad news, he said.

The boy's mother said she told him when he went to play at their relatives' farm that she did not want him to touch a BB gun "because I don't support any kind of firearms. Anyway, he got hold of it."

Her cousin, mother of the other boy, told her they were shooting at the rubbish pile in a big open area when aerial fireworks within it went off.

"My cousin said the houses shook around where they were."

The other boy was not hurt. "He just couldn't hear that good," said the injured child. "I could still hear a little bit. I could still see but my eyes hurt."

He said he thinks it was an aerial bomb -- "the one you light and it flies up and it goes off. That one didn't work, only when I shot at it."

He was about six feet away from the explosion and ran to the house yelling. "He was totally frightened," said his mother, who rushed home from work when she got a call about the accident.

She took him to the Waianae Coast Comprehensive Health Center, which recommended taking him to a specialist.

Plechaty, who has a Waianae office as well as one in the Queen's Physician's Office Building, saw the boy Jan. 5 and performed the surgery at Queen's.

He said it was difficult because "once the explosive pellet or projectile powder hit the eyes, it spread as fine dust particles through the center of the cornea, the front part of the eye.

"It made it virtually impossible to remove all of them. I managed to clear out the center, to restore good visual, optical access.

"To this day he has foreign particles in his cornea. He was lucky in that the optical center was spared and none of the particles penetrated the interior of the eye."

He was also lucky that the metal in his eye is not a reactive type of metal, which could cause damage, Plechaty said.

It looks like the child will not have any permanent or long-term damage, Plechaty said.

But he added: "What I have seen in the past are injuries where the kid has not been so lucky. They definitely do happen. When you see one, it's a shock."

The January incident was both a shock and lesson for the kids involved.

"The first thing he said was, 'Mommy, can we go to the movies on New Year's Eve instead (of doing fireworks)?'" the injured boy's mother said. "I said OK. It's a cultural thing and I respect that, but I'm very biased about that now."

Fireworks facts, celebrations National fireworks facts: >> 57 percent of eye injuries occur on Independence Day. >> 39 percent occur on New Year's. >> Bottle rockets cause 67 percent of eye injuries. >> Other causes: 15 percent are unknown, 7 percent are from firecrackers, 4 percent from Roman candles and 7 percent from other fireworks. >> Temperatures of fireworks can reach 1,800 degrees and cause third-degree burns. Even allegedly "safe" ones are dangerous. >> Fireworks are believed to have been discovered in China more than 1,000 years ago. They appeared in Europe in the 13th century. >> They were widely used for festivals and public entertainment in the 15th century. >> Elizabeth I appointed a fire master of England. >> In 1742 a huge fireworks display was built to celebrate the end of the War of the Austrian Succession. >> John Adams wrote on July 3, 1776, that fireworks should be included in celebrations marking the Declaration of Independence of the American colonies from England. >> The first celebration was in 1777, six years before Americans achieved independence. >> More fireworks are ignited today for the Fourth of July than for any other national celebration in the world. Source: U.S. Eye Injury Registry