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Jul 28, 2023

How to Protect Your Eyes from the Most Common Summer Injuries

From golf to yard work to watching fireworks, summer activities can sometimes

From golf to yard work to watching fireworks, summer activities can sometimes lead you straight to the ER. And many of those visits involve serious eye injuries. It's no surprise that accidents involving fireworks top the list.

A recent report by the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) found a significant upward trend in fireworks-related injuries. Between 2006 and 2021, injuries with fireworks climbed 25% in the U.S.

"Running with sparklers, getting in the way of a bottle rocket, and fiddling around with unexploded fireworks are all just accidents waiting to happen," says Griffin Jardine, MD, an ophthalmologist at John A. Moran Eye Center.

If you do experience a fireworks injury to the eye, you can minimize damage by:

Anything that can hit an eye bluntly or penetrate the eye may cause serious injury. Just like a concussion causes brain damage, concussive force to the eye can injure the eye itself and damage the connections between the eye and brain. This can disrupt the brain's ability to interpret light and electrical messages as vision.

Remember that ocular trauma can also cause problems with vision years after the initial injury, which can increase the risk of conditions like glaucoma, cataracts, and retinal detachment.

You can reduce your risk by: