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Group Urges People To Avoid “Backyard Fireworks”
By: Andy Chow | Statehouse News Bureau
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A coalition of health and safety organizations is urging people to stop shooting off fireworks and to leave the festivities to the professionals.
It’s legal to buy fireworks in Ohio, but it’s illegal to set them off here. And Sherry Williams, with Prevent Blindness, says it’s also dangerous.
She notes a report saying more than 9,000 people went to the hospital in 2018 with fireworks-related injuries like burns and amputations.
Williams urges people to leave a party if fireworks are about to be set off.
“The folks setting of the fireworks, they have the right to take the risk that they want to but putting innocent bystanders in the line of an injury, a death perhaps,” Williams says.
The groups advocating for fireworks safety included dog shelters, pediatricians, and the state fire marshal’s office.