All six victims of the New Year’s Eve fireworks explosion who were transported to an Arizona hospital are in stable condition. However, they will all face challenging recoveries.
The six victims were sent to Valleywise Health Arizona Burn Center to alleviate the pressure on Hawaiʻi's only burn unit.
The New Year’s Eve blast killed four people and seriously injured more than 20 others.
Straub Medical Center in Honolulu typically has four beds for severe burn injuries, but has surged to accommodate patients from the explosion.
Arizona Burn Center Director Dr. Kevin Foster explained that his team has been able to operate on all six patients and should have all the burns off of people by the end of Tuesday.
“We've gotten them over the first big hump, which is resuscitation and we're in the middle of the second big hump, which is excising all of the burn,” he said.
“The third big hump is getting the wounds closed. That tends to be the most dangerous time for burn patients, because that's when they get infections which is the most feared and dangerous complication for burn patients.”
He added that the patients will likely spend months in Arizona before they return home.
While this is not the first time the Arizona Burn Center has treated patients from Hawaiʻi — this is the first time they have had to take direct transfers from the state.
Foster explained the patients will likely have lifelong injuries and scarring. They will also face psychological impacts such as post-traumatic stress disorder. The six patients have between 45% to 80% of body surface burns.
“ The other big thing that we worry about are the psychological aspects of being burned. There's something uniquely and particularly horrifying about being burned especially from this type of injury,” he said.
“ We have two full-time psychologists and a psychiatrist on board that will help with that transition, but the physical and psychological aspects of burn injury are tremendous and it requires a lot of effort, but that's what we do here and we will get these patients through it.”
The explosion has put a bigger focus on deterring the use of illegal fireworks. State Sen. Brandon Elefante chairs the public safety committee and in the past introduced measures to crack down on illegal fireworks.
He explained that there need to be more resources for enforcement.
“I really think it boils down to really looking at providing more funding and resources to our Illegal Fireworks Task Force and continuing to look at our existing structure of what's in our law to really enforce that and go after some of these violators,” Elefante said.
He added that he is also open to looking into new shipping inspection technologies or ways to strengthen the law with harsher criminal penalties.
