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,