Background and objective.

The United States Consumer Product Safety Commission makes an annual report of injuries caused by fireworks, which guides decision-making strategies to reduce these types of accidents. Currently, Mexico does not have statistics or specific laws that help reduce the injuries from fireworks.

Our aim is to collect the characteristics of injuries caused by fireworks treated in the Plastic Surgery Service of the Hospital General Dr. Manuel Gea González in México City, with the intention of encouraging the creation of norms and regulations of pyrotechnics articles in Mexico and other countries.

Methods.

Retrospective and descriptive study of injuries caused by fireworks in the period from 2015 to 2019 treated at the Plastic Surgery Service of the General Hospital Dr. Manuel Gea González (Mexico).

Results.

We collected 84 patients; the highest incidence of injuries was in men (76%) and the most afected aged ranged from 5 to 14 years (37%). The most afected body region was the upper extremity, mainly hand (61%), followed by head and neck (27%) and pelvic limb (9%). The most frequent diagnosis was burns (32%), followed by lacerations (31%), fractures (20%), amputation (11%) and contusion (4%).

Conclusions.

In our environment, accidents caused by fireworks are afecting minors, causing serious injuries that can become disabling. In our opinion, strategies must be implemented to know the incidence of these accidents in order to create laws that regulate and prohibit the use of fireworks.

In the case of minors, their use should be prohibited and authorities and parents should be made aware of the risk that these activities entail. Besides, in most cases in our country the responsible family members do not have a formal job with access to social security health institutions.

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