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“Any victim, let alone a child, feels like one too many.” While rocket after rocket fired into the air at exactly midnight on New Year’s Eve and everyone cheered each other for a Happy New Year, plastic surgeon Emma Paes and her team were busy operating at the Wilhelmina Children’s Hospital in Utrecht.
Leaning over the hand of an 11-year-old boy, the doctors could only conclude that amputation was inevitable. Not long after, it was decided that his right eye also had to be removed due to a serious injury. “This is not a happy new year, it’s something terrible. How can we prevent it from happening again next year?” Paes asked after the operation.
See in the video below how plastic surgeon Emma Paes lived New Year’s Eve.
Surgeon Emma Paes operated on a young fireworks victim and then wanted to send a signal
When the plastic surgeon walked over to the machine after his shift and looked up, he saw the fireworks with pain. “I felt sad for the family, the victim and all the other victims. Unfortunately, we always see a spike in serious injuries around New Years.”
“The risk is real”
Paes hopes that parents, young people and children become aware of what fireworks can do. “The risk of fireworks shouldn’t be underestimated. The degree of injury, from a burn to a serious injury, really does exist,” the surgeon points out.
To raise awareness, she shared her experience from that New Year’s Eve in an emotional message on the Internet after the operation. “Can someone explain to me what we are doing in our country?” she concluded. Her message was shared en masse and provoked a flood of reactions, from supporters and opponents alike.
You don’t have to set it off yourself to become a victim.
Are the dangers of fireworks taken seriously enough? Paes thinks not. “You don’t have to turn it on yourself to become a victim. We see people where a glow goes into their hair, so that part of the ear is burned off.”
Paes says he saw the tip of the iceberg in the Utrecht hospital. But calling for a ban on fireworks leaves them at national politics Of. “I don’t have the knowledge to express an opinion on this, but I continue to hope for awareness and better information”, concludes Paes. Why: “When it comes to something like fireworks, which is for entertainment, one victim feels like one too many.”
