New Year's in Hawaii began with a preventable tragedy caused by careless fools who consider popping tons of fireworks all at once a "tradition"
“The truth is that people had traumatic injuries so badly that brain material was across the sidewalk from the ferocity of this explosion, and we want people to hear that because that is what is really possible with these explosive fireworks,” he said. “Some of the deceased had injuries that were that tragic, that traumatic. We’re talking about the worst possible war zone injuries that took their lives.
“And in the next couple of days, it’s highly likely that some of the people that didn’t even look that bad will die because their lungs were burned out,” Green added. “And that’s what you happen to see when explosions happen right in front of you.”Most of the 20-plus patients transported to hospitals were critically injured with burns over much of their bodies, according to Dr. Jim Ireland, Honolulu Emergency Services Department director. Three children were among those transported, including a 3-year-old boy with extensive burns, according to EMS.Ireland said an additional 10 to 15 people suffered what were considered “minor” injuries and did not necessarily require ambulance transport to the hospital.“We did not actually transport a lot of patients with minor injuries, but I remember a 12-year-old girl with burns on her leg and some shrapnel,” Ireland said.
My comment on Facebook was this
A 3-year-old boy has died from injuries received at the New Year's Eve fireworks explosion in Oʻahu's Salt Lake-Āliamanu neighborhood. He is the fourth fatality so far, according to local officials.
The Honolulu Department of the Medical Examiner identified the boy as Cassius Ramos-Benigno. The cause and manner of death were both listed as pending on Monday.
The explosion also left three women dead and dozens injured, including children.
"That 3-year-old was in an ambulance when I got there about 15 minutes after the event happened. So I didn't see that 3-year-old, but our teams took care of him, teams with EMS and the Honolulu Fire Department, and got him to Kapiʻolani and did everything they could for that boy," said Dr. Jim Ireland, director of the Honolulu Emergency Service Department.
A deadly New Year’s Eve fireworks explosion at a Salt Lake home inundated Hawaiʻi’s only burn center with the largest volume of patients from a single event in the unit’s 42-year history.
Six of the most critically injured survivors will fly on a military aircraft Saturday to Arizona for specialized treatment to help absorb some of the load, according to the governor’s office.
Honolulu’s Straub Benioff Medical Center has four beds to serve severe skin and tissue damage in burn patients from across the North Pacific, including Guam and Micronesia. In an emergency, the unit’s capacity can surge, absorbing beds from the ICU to handle upward of 20 patients with injuries from heat, electricity, radiation, infection, disease or chemicals.
But its capacity buckled on Wednesday, when a fireworks blast at a Salt Lake home just after midnight left three people dead and seriously injured more than 20. A fourth person died in a fireworks-related incident in Kalihi on New Year’s Day.
and then there's this
Hilton Raethel, chief executive of the Healthcare Association of Hawaiʻi, described the New Year’s event as extraordinary because so many were badly burned in one incident.
“We can handle a bunch of heart attacks, we can handle a bunch of broken bones, we can handle a bunch of strokes, we can handle a lot of things all at once and really surge the capacity,” he said Friday. “We can handle a pandemic because it builds over time and we have time to plan. But this event was even worse than even the Maui wildfires.”
Usually in wildfires (and most fire incidents) more people die from smoke inhalation than actually get burned by the fire. That could also be true in this incident.
But the fact that MORE PEOPLE got burned in this recent fireworks incident than the 2023 Maui wildfires SAYS A LOT!
- So many people in close proximity to the fireworks popping all at once
- once fireworks explode, you have ZERO CONTROL over where it lands
- innocent bystanders can get hit
- nearby homes can get burned to ashes
- all this because some fools think it's "tradition" to put others in danger to celebrate the New Year
