Illegal Fireworks Injure Several Southland Children, Adults
LOS ANGELES (CBS) — Authorities say several people were recovering Thursday from fireworks injuries.
In South Los Angeles a 3-year-old boy and 38-year-old man had to be treated by Los Angeles firefighters after using illegal fireworks, spokesman Brian Humphrey said. The boy suffered a "significant" cut to his forehead, while the man sustained a puncture wound.
Firefighters were later called out to Watts, where a "4-year-old girl suffered a sizeable and potentially scarring full-thickness burn to the right side of her neck when as much as 2 percent of her body surface area was impacted by a flaming and outlawed Roman Candle," Humphrey said.
The parents of another child who had been burned by illegal fireworks made a frantic 9:27 p.m. call from their car to 911 dispatchers while racing to a local hospital, but did not give their location or further details, Humphrey said. They did not stay on the line.
In Huntington Beach, which overturned its ban on "Safe and Sane" fireworks in time for this year's Independence Day celebration, a man had to be taken to a hospital with an injury he suffered as "the result of the use of dangerous, illegal fireworks," Huntington Beach Deputy Fire Marshal Bob Culhane said.
(©2012 CBS Local Media, a division of CBS Radio Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. Wire services contributed to this report.)