Burns from fireworks hospitalize four in Augusta

Injuries from fireworks sent four people to an Augusta burn center on New Year’s Day.

The patients, ranging in age from 7 to 33, included one from Augusta and others from Columbus, Ga., Sumter, S.C., and Destrehan, La., said Barclay Bishop, the hospital’s public relations manager.

“Two had fireworks explode in their hand,” she said in an e-mail, and another was injured when a Roman candle shot up a jacket sleeve and ignited the jacket.

The other injury, she said, involved a patient whose pants were ignited after a firework being shot from a tube fell out.

The burns on those patients affected from less than 1 percent to as much as 13 percent of their bodies.

Although New Year’s Day is a time of year often associated with fireworks, the July Fourth holiday accounts for the highest number of such accidents, according to the Consumer Product Safety Commission.