Was a busy night for the rescue during the New Year’s party.
10 people have been treated for eye injuries in hospitals in Norway after fireworks went off. Two of them wore goggles.
Three of them are seriously injured, while the other seven have moderate eye injuries.
Nils Bull tells it. He is a senior physician in the eye department of Haukeland University Hospital.
Bull refers to New Year’s Eve as the day when “drunk people will handle explosives in large crowds.”
Every year it collects national data on injuries after the New Year’s party.
Fireworks tonight.
Photo: Josef Benoni Ness Tveit / NRK
The wounded are three men, two women, four boys and a girl.
– Four of the injured were bystanders and one of them suffered serious eye damage, says Bull.
Seven of the injuries were caused by the use of a power battery, while the girl was injured by a shooting star. For two of the injured, it is not specified what type of fireworks were used.
Bull points out that the pair wearing the safety goggles would have had worse injuries if they hadn’t used them.
Most unreasonable use
Nils Bull calls every eye department in the country and speaks to the doctor on duty. This way he can map the injuries, who was injured and how the injuries occurred.
In recent years there has been an increasingly unreasonable use of fireworks among boys.
– I’m afraid this is a new trendthat can have a contagion effect, he said last year.
Unreasonable use was also recorded last night.
Fireworks were fired at people, buildings, police and vehicles in Haugerud.
Several metro stations in Oslo have been closed after fireworks were set off inside the stations.
And in Kristiansand, someone shot fireworks through a window. Nobody was hurt.
But in Stord, a man in his 30s was hospitalized in Bergen after lighting a battery. Only half left.
– The man then went away to check, and then everything went away, says director of operations Brit Randulff in the Sørvest police district to NTB.
Bull says it is mostly men who are at risk.
– Women and children stay safe with glasses a good distance away and do as they should, but drunken men of all ages never learn.
Bull believes there are primarily three things that get done wrong: someone is drunk, someone isn’t wearing goggles, and someone isn’t following the rules.
– The rules are that fireworks must be ignited as explosives. In other words, use a lighter and retreat quickly. You should by all means not go back if it doesn’t work, he says.
The other broken rule is that large batteries are placed on bad surfaces, causing them to spin and fire rockets in the wrong direction.
Lots of fireworks
Despite high inflation and high electricity prices, Norwegians have refrained from fireworks.
Private fireworks generated a turnover of NOK 500 million in 2021, and in the last two years the turnover has increased by more than 30%, writes the Norwegian Fireworks Association in a press release.
On Dec. 25, the association announced that 2022 looked likely a new record year for the fireworks industry.
Augelege Bull wants to ban fun.
In 2023, the legislation on fireworks and pyrotechnic articles will be revised.
– This year, politicians have the opportunity to put an end to these senseless wounds when they revise the regulations. In 18 years there were 273 eye injuries, Bull says.
It also includes hand injuries, burns, hearing loss and minor injuries that end up in emergency rooms.
– The only way to stop this is to block access.
