On today’s Inside Look by Brooks, Steve Brooks talks about Fourth of July safety tips.

Welcome

Good afternoon, Steve Brooks here with Friday’s Inside Look by Brooks. I just was on Interstate 4, one of the most dangerous highways in the country. Traffic was horrible; it was raining, so I’m glad to be back in my office. This will be my last broadcast before July 4th.

Fireworks

July 4th is actually on a Wednesday this year, and it always brings up safety issues. July 4th is a very dangerous holiday because of fireworks. The Tampa Bay Buccaneers just traded for Jason Pierre-Paul, who was a defensive lineman with the New York Giants, and I think also played college ball at USF. He is a stud football player that we just got; but Jason Pierre-Paul has a history of injuring himself with fireworks. I don’t know if it was his left hand or his right hand, but he was doing fireworks one year and something blew up in his hand. He lost some of his fingers, or part of his hand. It almost affected his football career. This was a guy making millions of dollars a year who, by enjoying himself on July 4th, potentially had a career ending injury. Fireworks are dangerous, and they sneak up on you. I know my brother, two or three years ago, was setting off some fireworks on the ground. He lit it and thought it was pointing away from him, but it kind of came back and went into his shoe. He was wearing open-toed shoes, and burned his foot really bad. I can cite several other instances of people that were injured doing what they considered to be a safe, fairly benign activity, which is shooting off fireworks on July 4th. So we want everybody to remember to please, please take extra precaution.

Safety Tips

You definitely do not want to be drinking alcohol if you’re the person in charge of lighting the fireworks. You want to make sure that you’re keeping the kids away, and that you’ve got a fire extinguisher nearby if something catches on fire. Make sure that the fireworks are pointed away from you, your friends, and family. You always want to make sure that you don’t have cigarette smokers around the fireworks, because ashes or fire could somehow mix with the fireworks and then you have unplanned explosions.

Conclusion

Please be careful! I hope everybody enjoys a safe and wonderful July 4th, and that you get to spend time with your beloved friends and family. Have a good middle of the week break. Happy July 4th everybody! I hope everybody has a nice, safe weekend. It’s rainy out there today, so when you’re going home from work, please drive carefully. Steve Brooks here with Brooks Law Group. We’re an all injury law firm serving the entire state of Florida, with offices in Tampa, Winter Haven, and Auburndale. If you have any questions for me, you can always shoot me an email at [email protected], or give me a call at (800) 529-3030. Have a great weekend, and thanks for joining me! We’ll see you next Friday at 3 o’clock for Friday’s Inside Look by Brooks.

Stephen K. Brooks
Author: Stephen K. Brooks

Steve was born in New Orleans, Louisiana. As was the practice for new doctors his father worked day and night during his medical residency at Charity Hospital there. Steve comes from a long line of doctors. His father, his grandfather, his great grandfather, even two uncles were all specialists and/or surgeons in their chosen medical specialties, including internal medicine specialist, obstetrics / gynecology, neurosurgery and general practice / surgery. His great-great grandfather was the Surgeon General of Ohio during the Civil War.