Don’t be a dummy with fireworks; July 4 no time to be ‘degloved’

‘Degloved,” is a term I had never heard before Dr. Brian Sayger, chairman of emergency medicine at Advocate Christ Medical Center in Oak Lawn, used it to describe a certain …

But first, a warning to those who might be squeamish or eating breakfast: Our subject today is fireworks and how truly dangerous they are. Given that a certain number of Chicagoans will be hurt by nightfall, maybe maimed — last year a woman had her right foot blown off — and maybe even killed, this column will stray into the grim specifics, and a person digging into his poached egg or her porridge might prefer to set this aside for consideration later in the day. …

… So, where were we? “Degloved.”

“Children will hold firecrackers in their hands thinking they will feel little pop,” Sayger said. “Sometimes it will deglove a hand: blow off all the soft tissue of a hand.”

The true experts at this are drunk teens.

“It’s usually a teenager or a young 20-year-old who has been drinking,” Sayger said. “They’ll hold an M80 in their closed hand. It has enough explosive power that everything comes off: skin gone, muscles gone, blood vessels, tendons, pretty catastrophic injuries that create permanent disability.”

Not to overstate the case.

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