Nevertheless, all in all it was a quiet night, the police reported on Monday. The Red Cross looked following more than 50 revelers in Upper Austria. Seven had to be taken to hospital because of accidents involving fireworks, including two with a serious facial injury and one with a serious hand injury, the Red Cross said in a press release on Monday.
120 rescue cars and 280 rescue and emergency paramedics as well as 18 emergency ambulances, each with 18 emergency paramedics and emergency doctors, were on duty. In Eberschwang (Ried district) as well as in Hinterstoder (Kirchdorf district) and Pupping (Eferding district), a man was injured while handling fireworks that exploded.
A 34-year-old was trying to fire New Year’s Eve firecrackers in the garden of his home at 12:05 a.m Pupping (Eferding district) was seriously injured in the face and hand. The man wanted to start the fireworks battery with the replacement detonator because the regular detonator had come loose. However, the replacement detonator detonated immediately following ignition. The 34-year-old was taken to the Linz accident hospital by ambulance.
In Bad Ischl (Gmunden district) A 25-year-old suffered minor burns on his hand from a Bengal fire at 12:12 a.m. The young man had to be taken by rescue to the hospital in Bad Ischl, where he was treated as an outpatient. The young man told the police that an unknown person next to him had ignited the fire, but witnesses said that the man himself had held the firecracker in his hand and burned himself to death through no fault of his own.
Fireworks batteries started fires
In Andorf (Schärding district), fireworks caused a fire on a facade. Passers-by alerted the emergency services at 1:20 a.m. The house facade and a vehicle standing next to it were slightly damaged. In Mauthausen (Perg district), a hedge burned five minutes following midnight, which was probably caused by a pyrotechnic object. The fire department quickly extinguished the fire.
