Stupidity kills allright. All too often it kills the folks down the block, or little kids drawn by the excitement.
“It’s the stupid misusers, not the devices.” Same old song.
Any of you ever seen a “sparkler bomb” in action?
Peace,
mangeorge (AKA Grampa George)
Sniff. I wanna play wiff my bang-bangs.
Now there’s a rolleyes :rolleyes: for ya.
If the statistics are that about 8,500 firework-related injures take place in the US every year, with general population of 290,000,000, that’s about 1 in 34,100 people.
I live in a town with a population of about 42,000, which means one person in the city will visit the ER each year with a “serious” firework injury, more or less.
Well, I happen to have worked in a radiology clinic for the past 2 4oJ holidays, reading radiology reports out of the local county hospital’s ER, and I have yet to see one X-ray that explicitly says something like “pt firework inj home” or “bottle rocket” or “hand vs firecracker” or “this idiot stuck a Whistling Pete in his ear while juggling lit torches.”
I’m not suggesting the statistics are wrong, or that fireworks injuries do not occur, or that I am able to read each and every report with 100% accuracy—maybe I missed those reports, maybe someone else coded those films.
Instead, I’m curious how this information is ascertained and what constitutes a “serious” injury.
Do hospitals routinely x-ray burns, serious or minor? I’m actually curious, not *just['i] challenging your statement.
I only read the reports, so I can’t say what the protocol is for which injuries are X-rayed and which are simply treated. I have to guess that a firecracker in the hand would prompt the docs to examine for open wounds, burns, possible dislocation of finger joints, possible traumatic amputation. I see reports of dislocation and amputation films frequently—you know, from fingers in doors and hands on table saws—but of course, I’m not aware when either is treated sans film.
Firecrackers going off in close proximity may cause embedment of a foreign body, for which X-rays seem common—rock from under a lawn mower, BB gun vs lip, nail gun vs. foot, piece of glass on the beach, and such. Again, I see these frequently, but perhaps they are not universal. I don’t think one firecracker packs enough punch to simply cause a fracture, though I could be wrong. Perhaps one of our SDMB doctors such as Qadgop could enlighten us further.
Like I said, I’m not debating whether “serious injuries” happen. My position here is one of the reasons why I’m curious what they call a “serious injury.” Serious enough to report? Serious enough for a visit to the ER? Serious enough for corrective surgery? Serious enough that it really really hurts? The guy who was run over by lawn equipment, that to me was a serious injury.
Was that in the early 80’s? I remember one year when they allowed the crowd too close to the launch area. IIRC, one person was critically injured when a rocket came down and exploded in the crowd, and during the finale burning embers rained down on us. My friend and I kind of teamed up to slap them off each other. There was quite a panic and a lot of screaming, and dozens who ended up requiring medical treatment of some type.
So it’s not only idiot amateurs who hurt themselves. Idiot professionals can hurt people wholesale.
Has anyone ever seen a report of a fireworks store going up? Every time I have been in one, I was a little nervous that someone would toss a cigarette or something stupid… that would be a REAL mess.
I see you grasp the facts, yet you (the proverbial you) are somehow never upset with said stupid misusers, but with the devices. Why? What is the problem with placing blame where it belongs: On the damn idiot who failed to use his brain? Why the insistence on blaming an inanimate object which is incapable of doing anything on its own?
“Tom set little Billy on fire with a sparkler! Ban sparklers!!”
You can’t prevent people from dying (or from killing, for that matter) due to stupidity. All you can do is make the world less fun than it is now.
Sorry to ask, but what does “international certified lead shooter” means, exactly? In particular the “international” part?
I was just assuming. It was smoldering/burning cardboard of some sort. round in cross section and tubular (dude). You tell me. But it hurt like a bitch and gave me a pretty nasty burn about 4 inches long.
I was near the Washington Monument when it happened and was surrounded by people.
Many of us call anything that zooms into the sky then explodes, including a mortar, a rocket.
Professional, huh? 
Is that pronounced “leed” or “led”.
You missed a little bit when you (the general you) quoted me;
““It’s the stupid misusers, not the devices.” Same old song.” The last three words are said with a sigh.
Thing is, I do plame the fools, and try to take things away from them that can hurt others. Too bad you (in general again) have to suffer with said fools. Preferable, for me, to having innocents burned. Or killed.
And it would seem that Dear Abby didn’t exaggerate the problem.
Sounds like the core of a mortar shell. They make them by wrapping Kraft paper around a section of cardboard tube, which gets filled with stars and various other effects. They are launched out of a tube, called a mortar, and are usually electrically ingited these days. The bottom is filled with black powder–the “lift charge”, which propels the shell into the air as high as 800-1000’, and also ignites the burst charge. The burst charge in turn ignites the stars and explodes, making the pretty display.
PBS had a pretty good program about the history and development of fireworks a while back. I tried to find a nice site with pictures, showing the process, but I’ve had no luck. Maybe Wikkit knows one.
Three replies:
Pyrotechnics Guild International, Inc.
Lead like leed, def. 6,“To play a principal or guiding role in”. The leader of the shooters.
It was likely a part of a shell. I can’t say what kind of shell, but it shouldn’t have come down in one piece, and it definitely shouldn’t have come down anywhere near the public. Safety guidelines are strict and well defined, and adhered to as best as possible. There are non-pyrotechnician influences that can encourage a show to go in less than ideal situations, such as high winds. The most common influence is the people paying thousands of dollars for the display. Mortars in a large show can’t be repositioned or aimed differently after they’ve been placed, so it comes down to an issue of the possibilty of debris versus cancellation of a show that thousands of people have come to see.
There’s actually still a fairly strong tradition of lighting shells by hand in a smaller show. Electronics aren’t necessary until you get to larger shows, like they tend to put in documentaries, or shows coordinated to music.
The tube is the outside, rather than the core, and the amount of spiking–the reinforcing tape and string wrapped around the tube–varies greatly depending on the intended effect.
Not off the top of my head, but I found this one through google: http://www.pyrouniverse.com/professional.htm
It shows both cylindrical and spherical shells. Spherical shells are more common and are necessary for any effect that you want to always explode as a sphere. Cylindrical shells are easier to make, so they get used for everything else.
Hmmm. Thanks. From my memory of what I saw of them being made, it looked like they wrapped several layers of the Kraft paper around the short tube section, making longer paper tube over the cardboard form, loaded the burst charge and its fuse, filled it with stars, and then twisted and tied the ends of the paper tube to close the shell, but maybe I misunderstood what I was seeing. They didn’t exactly show the entire process in great detail, for obvious reasons.
Yes, that is one method, and you got most of the process for that kind of shell. They’re all basically made by wrapping paper around things, so I didn’t understand exactly what you were descibing from your first description. That makes a quick and dirty shell, that would be very non-symmetric, which is OK if you’re filling it with firecrackers (to make crackle) or go-getters or another chaotic effect. Or if it’s to be used in the finale, where it’s going to get stepped on by other shells and no one will ever see it on its own. Because the ends are weaker than the tube, the resulting airburst resembles a bowtie, if you see it from the right direction.
Shells can be even simpler than that. A “stickless rocket”, more descriptively known as a comet, is nothing more than a solid ball of composition (often hand formed, in the case of Chinese shells) wrapped in paper with some lift charge and a fuse.
What are those? I’m picturing those ones that spin around, spewing out sparks as they spiral away.
Even better, how about a fireworks FACTORY going up?
How about a video of it? (4.7 MB .wmv file, click-through one page to get to it.)
I have seen (usualy teenage boys, but some girls) light firecrackers and throw them at people. If I saw that today (now) I would report them, QUICK.
Spelling and grammer subject to change without notice.