Officials Strike Up Anti-Fireworks Effort

City officials, medical personnel and a fireworks victim teamed up Thursday, a week before the Fourth of July, to hammer home the dire consequences of playing with fireworks and the need for parents to make sure their kids don’t.

L.A. City Fire Battalion Chief Rick Garcia conducted a news conference at the Grossman Burn Center at Sherman Oaks Hospital, kicking off the department’s 1996 anti-fireworks campaign.

In addition to the reminder that fireworks are dangerous, he urged the public to attend professional pyrotechnic displays and stressed that all fireworks, even those sold as “safe and sane,” are illegal in the city of Los Angeles.

City Councilman Mike Feuer, a father of two children, urged parents to take extra precautions.

“The Fourth should be a glorious celebration of our independence,” he said. “Don’t let it end up in a burn center like this.”

William Bamattre, the Fire Department’s chief engineer, agreed. “It is not the children’s responsibility, it’s the responsibility of their parents,” he said, noting that July 4th, the busiest day of the year for his department, comes at the height of the “already busy” brush fire season.

And then, there in the scarred flesh, was Gregory Evangelatos, 34, who was blinded and lost fingers on both hands in 1980 when some fireworks he was making blew up in his Encino bedroom.

“Young people tend to think they’re invincible,” he said, recounting years of treatment and surgery, which included the reconstruction of one hand by using the ball of one of his feet.

The psychological consequences of such accidents can be equally “horrible,” said Shannon Nelson, a registered nurse and coordinator of critical care at the Grossman Burn Center.

She said burn victims face separation and ostracism, particularly when the face and other visible parts of the body are burned.

“There is no way to describe the pain that they go through,” she said of burn patients. “It alters their whole life plan.”