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Sugar Land woman injured after lighting fireworks
FOX 26 Reporter Natalie Hee has more on what happened.
SUGAR LAND, TX - A Sugar Land woman was hospitalized after suffering a severe facial injury from Fourth of July fireworks.
Overnight, a 29-year-old woman was life-flighted to the hospital after Fort Bend County Sheriff’s Deputies say she suffered a severe facial injury from lighting fireworks.
It happened outside Kroger off Highway 6 in Sugar Land.
"The girl was trying to light the fireworks, then she tripped on it while she was trying to light it up, and her whole face was injured, half of her face," said Laiba Kanwal, a witness.
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Dr. James Knight is an emergency physician and the Chief Medical Officer at Houston Methodist in The Woodlands.
Over the years, he’s treated thousands of fireworks-related injuries and nearly went blind himself after a scary Fourth of July accident when he was a teenager.
"When I was 13 years old, I actually had a Roman candle explode on the right side of my face. I actually spent two and a half to three hours in an emergency department having my eye irrigated out. And I basically lost a vision in my right eye for about three weeks, and they weren't sure if it was actually going to come back or not, so I've been pretty passionate about firework injuries my entire career as an emergency physician," Dr. Knight said.
Dr. Knight said injuries to the hands, fingers, face, ears, eyes, and legs tend to be the most common, but are easily avoidable with safety gear. He warns that some firework injuries can become permanent.
"It's pretty rare for people that actually die from firework injuries in general, but some of these injuries can be very serious and can really dismember people, especially the hand injuries."
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"Almost everybody when they go to a gun range has hearing protection and eye protection in place. I really find it fascinating that basically shooting off fireworks can create a louder noise and a more dangerous and uncontrolled situation. And people don't actually wear hearing protection and eye protection. So if you are going to shoot off a bunch of fireworks, please practice basic precautions," Dr. Knight said.
As of Monday night, Fort Bend County officials have not released any more information about the woman’s condition.