EDITORIAL — Completely preventable injuries and deaths

The new year didn’t start so happy for some people. This after the Department of Health recorded 443 injuries and one death related to firecrackers as well as two injuries resulting from stray bullets.

The fatality was a 38-year-old man from the Ilocos Region who was reportedly drunk around firecrackers. One of the two stray bullet injuries was a priest in Baguio City who suddenly found out he had been shot in the left shoulder after experiencing an “itch”, while the other was a man in the Davao Region who was also hit by a bullet in his left upper back.

Among those who suffered firecracker injuries, six had to have limbs or digits amputated. Of course the numbers may yet rise as reports trickle in.

Aside from that there were also 13 reports of illegal discharge of firearms during the new year celebrations, up from 12 in 2022 and 11 in 2021.

This should have been behind us now; by “this” we mean the crude, callous, reckless, and even dangerous way some of us choose to celebrate greeting the new year.

Setting off firecrackers is a tradition some of us insist on keeping. Very well, then. Have your noisemakers. But it must be done responsibly with the reveler and the firecracker having little or no contact during the lighting of the firecracker.

It must also not be done while inebriated. And no dangerous firecrackers for kids.

These tips may come too late for those who lost limbs, but they should have learned valuable lessons by now, the hard way.

As to firing guns in the air, this was something we hoped would have been in the past. For a while the Philippines became infamous for the people injured or even killed as a result of people firing into the air on New Year’s Eve. This actually waned over time, but it seems to be on the rise again.

What’s sad is that deaths or injuries by firecrackers or firearms during this time of the year are completely preventable. More needs to be done to wean people away from dangerous behavior during New Year’s Eve celebrations. This is a shared responsibility of the authorities, the community, and individual families.