What should have been a joyous way of ushering in the New Year ended up a disaster that brought tears and blood to me as well as my family. The culprit was a firecracker which colluded with me.
From my childhood, I have always been afraid of firecrackers, known as knock-outs or bangers in the local parlance. Even when my agemates toyed with them and performed all kinds of stunts with them as a sign of bravery, I kept my distance. Even though I never saw anybody harmed by firecrackers, I still did not like touching them. However, that did not stop me from enjoying the razzmatazz caused by these firecrackers.
As a money-earning adult, I argued that igniting firecrackers was tantamount to lighting a matchstick and holding it under a currency note and watching it, with excitement, burn to ashes. As a father, anytime our children or nephews and nieces asked for money to buy firecrackers at the Yuletide or New Year, I would always give them this analogy of setting money on fire. But sometimes, for the sake of not being seen as too rigid or too stingy, I would oblige them, for one could see the sadness on their faces while they watched other children “enjoying” themselves with their own firecrackers.
In 2014, before travelling home for Christmas, my wife bought some firecrackers in Lagos. On December 31 morning, she shared them among the children in the family: our children, nephews and nieces among others. After the crossover service of that year, we all gathered in front of the family gate and began blasting away the firecrackers. Among the firecrackers, the real deal are the firecrackers that look like two-foot pipes and shoot up to 70 metres into the air with a bang and an exciting light display.
In 2015, before leaving Lagos for Nnewi, Anambra State with my family, I decided that we should have more fun while ushering in the New Year, having watched the happiness and excitement the little we did the previous year caused in the family.
Our children were excited right from Lagos and looked forward to having fun with the firecrackers in addition to the fun they usually have anytime we travel home. Right from the Christmas Eve, they began to ask that the firecrackers be shared. My wife and I scolded them and insisted that the firecrackers would be used after the December 31 crossover church service. Immediately the service was over, we gathered at the family gate and there was excitement among the children. But rather than share the firecrackers as we did the previous year, I decided to set the ball rolling. Again, rather than use my right hand, I chose to hold the firecracker with my left hand. Even though these pipe-like firecrackers are not meant to be held in the hand, I had never seen it burst and injure the holder. I had observed that it had a thick cover that looked strong enough to make it not burst while in use.
Once the firecracker was lighted, I held it far away from my face with my left hand, and off went the shots one after the other, lighting up the sky. By the time over 10 shots had gone off, I was asking when the shots would be exhausted. Then, a shot that was supposed to go out sounded differently, showing that it had malfunctioned. Instantly, there was a blast on my hand that made it go numb. I jumped away, holding my left hand with my right hand. Then, I looked at my hand. It was covered with blood. There was a deep cut on my palm. The tip of my ring finger had cut off. I looked at my hand for a while in shock and disbelief and then showed it to my relatives around.
Straight to the nearby The Light Hospital we went, but the nurses refused to attend to me, saying that it was not the kind of case they handle. They did not even offer me first aid to stop the bleeding, even when they saw that we were their neighbours.
From there, we drove to the Nnamdi Azikiwe University Teaching Hospital, Nnewi. About six other firecracker cases had been reported that same night, some of them with all fingers shattered. By 7 am, the number of cases had risen to 12, among whom were children, men and women. The nurses and doctors confirmed that there had been similar cases since Christmas Eve. The accident and emergency unit gave all of us first aid treatment. Shockingly, the doctors and nurses at NAUTH were ridiculing the victims of firecrackers and generally treating them and all other patients with levity and lack of empathy and concern. Because of the poor attitude of the doctors and nurses, they did not even know that it was critical that my wedding ring should have been removed immediately. The X-ray officer who noticed that my bandaged hand had a ring on it asked me if a doctor saw it and I said yes. A doctor had cleaned my hand and bandaged it without saying anything about the ring. When I was told that my hand would not be attended to until the next day because some materials were not available, by daybreak I asked to be discharged.
I was taken to a hospital managed by a plastic surgeon, a consultant at NAUTH. The first thing the doctor who attended to me did was to remove the ring. It was a painful experience because by then my finger had swollen up. He explained that if the ring had been allowed there till the next day, the finger would have swollen up so much that it would be difficult for the ring to come out, which could lead to the entire finger rotting away and being cut off. He cleaned the hand, gave me some treatment and put the hand under observation. By the next day, after examining me, he took me to the theatre for surgery.
The nagging question has been: What caused this high rate of firecracker accidents this season? Some have pointed to a reduction in quality; others blame it on the excessive fortification of the firecrackers to increase their explosive capacity and sound effect. But a doctor at NAUTH gave a perspective that at first sounded outlandish but on a second thought, it did not look impossible. He said that he suspected a subtle terror attack. He added that the second means of this terror attack could be an infusion of petrol into kerosene used for cooking so as to cause domestic explosion.
But whatever caused this high rate of firecracker accident, there should be a concerted effort at education. It should not be all about blaming the victims. It should be about ensuring that more and more people, especially our children, do not have their fingers chopped off by these monstrous firecrackers.
I endured pain and discomfort to dictate this experience to my wife on my sickbed to serve as a lesson to people. From the moment this accident happened to me, I was taking pictures of my hand at every stage which I plan to use in this campaign through the social media, newspapers, TV stations, churches, schools, social organisations etc to ensure that the limbs of our people are saved.
One could blame the victims for holding the firecrackers in their hands but it was also to ensure that the firecrackers were directed away from human beings and buildings rather than fixing them in the ground with the risk of them falling down and shooting in all directions.
The Nigeria Police and the Standards Organisation of Nigeria should investigate the sources and make-up of these firecrackers. It will be very difficult to stop Nigerians from celebrating Christmas and New Year without firecrackers. Some rich men spend hundreds of thousands of naira each year to usher in the New Year. That does not stop them from fulfilling their obligations to the poor and needy as well as their communities. So, just like in the fight against HIV, which focused primarily on abstinence and secondarily on protection, there should be a firecracker campaign which focuses primarily on boycott and secondarily on safe ways to use them if one must.
PUNCH
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