BENGALURU: The city saw at least 40 cases of firecracker-related injuries in just the first two days. Unfortunately, the number of cases did not come down even on the last day of Deepavali.
Sankara Eye Hospital in the city received 16 cases of eye injuries on Tuesday, of which eight of the patients were children. Minto Eye Hospital received six cases of eye injuries caused by firecrackers and unfortunately, two of these patients lost their vision in one eye.
Pavan (22), a resident of Chikagolaratti, was a patient. He had placed a Lakshmi bomb in a paint box to increase the noise level. When the bomb burst, the lid of the paint box flew in the air and hit his right eye. Pavan has now lost sight in his right eye.
“The impact of the hot paint lid hitting him and the chemicals in the crackers impacted his eye and he has lost his vision in the right eye. We did a surgery in order to retain the globe but now he has lost his eye permanently and in the left eye he had multiple corneal foreign objects, which were cleared,” said Dr Sujatha Rathod, Director of Minto Eye Hospital.
In a similar incident, 13-year-old Rohan tried bursting a bomb inside a pipe in order to make it even louder. But due to the impact of the cracker, the pipe flew in the air and hit Rohan’s right eye.
“Rohan was unable to perceive light and it is clear that he has lost his vision in the right eye. His is also a global rupture,” Rathod added.
Narayana Nethralaya, Super Speciality Eye Care Hospital, had 10 cases on Monday. “They were all minor cases with most of them coming with red-eye and they were cured immediately,” a spokesperson from Narayana Nethralaya said.
Manipal Hospital received patients who suffered from hearing issues. “We received two cases of adults who suffered persistent ringing in the ears, called tinnitus, and minimal hearing loss owing to noise levels crossing 125 decibels. This could turn into a life long malady if left untreated. If not, it is either self-resolving or can be rectified with medication,” said Dr Vijay Rangachari, consultant ENT surgeon, Manipal Hospitals, Whitefield.
Cleaning up: BBMP draws rangolis, educates citizens
A day after the Deepavali revelry, many streets were strewn with cardboard boxes, paper, burnt sparklers and firecrackers, to say the least. On Sunday and Monday, pourakarmikas gathered all such waste from all the 198 wards and assembled the garbage in all the wards.
“On Tuesday, the waste was kept in one spot to show the citizens what they have left behind. The message we wanted to give is that this too is their waste and they must take responsibility to clean it up. We got them to join us in sweeping the waste,” said Sandhya, medical health officer, BBMP. Colourful rangolis were drawn at the spots where the black spots were.