Cracker: 49% of victims of eye injuries are children under 16 years

Bengaluru: Children under the age of 16 contributed 49.3% eye injury related firecrackers in the past 12 years, according to the record of patients with the Minto Ophthalmology hospital managed by the government accessed by TOI.
Data on eye injury suffered because of crackers and hospitalized from 2008 to 2020.
The hospital set a special ward during Deepavali to treat eye injury related to crackers.
Of the 646 people who were hospitalized for eye injury caused by fireworks between 2008 and 2020, 319 were children under the age of 16.
The remaining 327 cases are 16 years old and above.
Among 319 children, the majority – 265 or 83% – are boys and women only contribute 17% or 54 cases.
The trend was similar among adults too, men contributed 86% of injury.
Although the number of eye injuries related to crackers has declined for years, what worries for eye doctors in hospitals is the fact that injured children suffer from gentle vision loss.
In 2020, the hospital found sixteen children between 31 cases.
Three patients lost a vision in one eye, including a two-year-old boy.
Director of Hospital Dr.
Sujata L Rathod said the loss of vision depends on the severity of the injury.
However, there is no data available about how many of the total patients lost the vision.
“If a child becomes blind, he must undergo blindness for years, which influences its overall growth,” he said, adding that legislative forbidden crackers was the only solution to stop the cracker related to injury.
According to the hospital authority, 60% of eye injury related to the cracker caused by itself, while 40% were injuries suffered by innocent observers.
A team of ophthalmics used to visit schools and do workshops, educate children and teachers about not burn crackers during the festival, but this has stopped over the past two years due to a pandemic.
This year, the hospital has established a total ward with a total of 90 beds for the case of a cracker injury, with 30 beds each for men, women and children.