Easter firecrackers send Greeks to hospitals with amputated hands or fingers

While Greeks attend the Resurrection service in the churches or sit around the Easter table, some have found themselves in hospitals with their arms in bandages and their fingers or hands amputated due to firecrackers.

Every Easter in Greece the custom of firecrackers and fireworks sends people in hospitals and a life that changes for ever. It is worth noting that the victims are always men. This particular year, the toll was quite heavy.

Ten people, among them three minors, were injured from firecrackers that exploded in their hands and were admitted in hospitals throughout the country.

One was the injured rushed to a big hospital in Athens was a 15-year-old boy. He had reportedly threw a firecracker that failed to explode, then caught it again and it went off in his hand. Amputation of his hand was inevitable.

Also a 37-year-old man had his hand amputated, another 28-year-old suffered the same fate, too.

The most striking case is that of well-known clarinet virtuoso Aris Mougkopetros. He was entertaining as musician an Easter party in a village in Achaia, Peloponnese, when a friend of his handed him a firecracker over. The 32-year-old artist grabbed it thinking it was a smoke or a cake cracker. The firecracker exploded in his right hand and he was rushed to a hospital where two of his fingers had to be amputated, while he was also injured on the face and very close to his eye.

pictures: tlife.gr

Authorities are investigating the case and the circumstances of the accident including the fact that the firecracker was taken to a closed space with the presence of many people.

Each and every year, before and during the Easter days, authorities proceed to several arrests and seize large quantities of illegal firecrackers.

However, the absence of brain cells in some males are deafening.

Each and every year, it is men who lose their arms, hands and fingers, suffer all possible injuries mostly in limbs and faces.

From the ten injuries in Easter 2025, only one was superficial. The remaining nine were quite serious and required long surgeries.

One should also recall the spectacular custom of “rockets war” on the island of Chios and the Molotov cocktail bombs “resurrection” in Neos Kosmos district of Athens, a “tradition” that started in 2011.