Press Release/4 January 2009 The Department of Health (DOH) today recommended the complete banning of firecrackers and fireworks in residential areas after it claimed the lives of two revelers last New Year’s celebration.
“We are recommending the total ban because this is the first time that deaths due to firecrackers have been reported. In the previous years, fatalities were mainly due to watusi ingestion and stray bullets,” Health Secretary Francisco T. Duque III said.
The health chief said that in the 18 years of the existence of the DOH Philippine Fireworks Injury Surveillance (DOH-PFIS), it is only now that deaths due to pyrotechnic devices were reported.
“The two deaths involved a seven year-old male from Cabanatuan City and a 29 year-old male from Baguio City. Both died of cerebral concussion secondary to blasting last January 1,” Secretary Duque said.
The DOH-PFIS disclosed that the seven year-old boy was hit by a kwitis, a legal firecracker, on his upper eye lid on December 31. He then suffered a concussion and was rushed to the hospital where he died the next day, January 1. He was a passive case because he was just a bystander.
The other fatality was reportedly intoxicated when he lighted the jumbo kwiton bomb on January 1. When the firecracker exploded, he was hit in his right temple. He was dead on arrival when he was brought to the hospital. His cause of death was brain hemorrhage due to the blasting. The firecracker that killed him is not on the list of legal fireworks.
“We should take the total banning of firecrackers even more seriously now with these two deaths. We should not just ban the kwitis and the new illegal ‘cracker that cause the deaths of these two individuals because if the seemingly harmless watusi is able to not just maim but kill, then the other so-called legal firecrackers might also do the same in the future. We can’t risk more lives anymore before we take the big step of totally banning these potentially killer pyrotechnic devices,” Secretary Duque explained.
The DOH-PFIS reported that compared to the five-year average (2004-2009/same period), there is an increase of 13 cases or 1%.
There are 50 sentinel hospitals nationwide reporting to the DOH-PFIS this year.
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