During the Christmas and New Year’s period, at least 155 people in our country were injured by fireworks. The Burns Foundation reports this on Wednesday evening. Victims are still reporting in burn centers and hospitals, it sounds. On Tuesday, for example, four more victims reported themselves in the burns center of Neder-Over-Heembeek.
The Burns Foundation has been registering the fireworks accidents for several years from December 23 to January 2. Due to the coronacrisis and the accompanying measures, a decrease in the number of fireworks accidents with physical injuries could be seen in the period 2020-2021. At that time, one fatal victim and twenty injured people were registered.
In the end-of-year period last year (2021-2022) there were 68 victims, a number that is comparable to the years before the pandemic. This year 12 were injured at Christmas and on New Year 143, so that the number of victims is remarkably high.
Moreover, the number can still increase since victims with injuries of a few days old still turn to hospitals and burn centers. On Tuesday, four more victims reported in the burn center of Neder about Heembeek.
Of the 155 victims, 103 burns were lit, with 29 of them it hung on hearing damage. “The hands and face were again the most common parts of the body where injuries were set,” the Burns Foundation reports. “Often it is about smaller but sometimes deep burns due to the error manipulation of fireworks.”
Often Young People From Urban Areas
The majority of the victims (113) were men or boys. In 27 percent of the cases it concerns victims who are younger than 21, while in recent years that was 10 percent. It is also more often about young people from urban areas.
Finally, it is striking that victims were often injured by illegal fireworks. Almost 70 percent of the fireworks appeared to have been acquired in an illegal way.
The Burns Foundation points out that fireworks often come from Poland and surrounding countries and that the manual is then written in a language that most Belgians do not understand.
The Burns Foundation and the Belgian burn centers argue for a general ban on the use and sale of fireworks in Belgium.
This article is originally published on bruzz.be
