Poll: Will you buy fireworks this year?
Every Fourth of July the warnings go out, and every year, people end up in emergency rooms with burns, breaks, ears that can’t hear and eyes that can’t see.
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says that in 2006, the last year with complete numbers,
• 11 people died from fireworks accidents.
• About 9,200 were treated in emergency rooms for fireworks injuries.
• About 5 percent of fireworks injuries required hospitalization.
• More than two-thirds of fireworks injuries occurred between June 16 and July 16.
• One of every three people injured were children under 15 years old.
• Three times as many males were injured as females.
• People 20 and under sustained 47 percent of all injuries from fireworks.
• People using fireworks were more likely to be injured than bystanders.
In the face of those statistics — and knowing exponentially more injuries never get reported,
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I've written exclusively about health since the inception of the Health & Fitness section. I'm an off-road biker, altitude hiker and was into adventure sports until a fall down a Colorado mountain turned my lower back into abstract art. But I'm coming back. 
I work for ophthalmologists (eye surgeons) and you would not believe how many times they are called into the ER for eye injuries every 4th of July. The week after the holiday our office is jumping with people of all ages who took a bottle rocket to the eye. Hello, there are no eye transplants available. If you lose an eye, you don’t get another one, except for maybe a glass one. Bottle rockets and roman candles etc…love eyes and fingers! Please just go watch a professional fireworks show!!