Firework thrown into crowd at pub bonfire
Date published: 08 November 2010
A pub landlord has slammed “mindless morons” who threw a firework into a family crowd at his organised bonfire injuring a Shaw mother as her terrified daughter looked on.
Parents and youngsters were enjoying the fun at the Cricketers’ Arms in Milnrow Road around 8pm on Friday when the blazing firework was thrown into the onlookers.
It narrowly missed the woman’s eye, caught her hair and hit the skin on her temple, raising a large flap and covering her in blood.
She was treated by a trained first aider, Jackie Thornborrow, who was working at the pub, and a Royal Oldham Hospital theatre sister Diane Wardle, who had just taken her son Owen (8) to meet his dad at the bonfire, before ambulance paramedics arrived.
Diane, who had just moved to the Royal Oldham from Rochdale a week ago, said: “She was covered in blood and a bit in shock. Someone had thrown her daughter’s coat over the wound to protect it and when I took it off her scalp was still smoking, and she was bleeding heavily.”
Landlord Alan Hamblett said: “We have done this for years with no problems like this. We take everything really seriously and fenced the area off. It is an organised firework display but then you get mindless morons like this throwing fireworks.”
Police, fire and ambulance were called and Mrs Wentworth’s face was bandaged by paramedics before she was taken to the Royal Oldham Hospital with facial and eye injuries and minor burns.
Following a separate incident, a Heyside family thanked friends who rushed a man with burns to his hands, leg and body into a cold shower after a bonfire accident. The 18-year-old was at an informal bonfire on fields off Heyside Avenue, when he tripped over a pallet and fell on to the embers.
Today he is in Wythenshawe Hospital, and his family are waiting to talk to his doctors but fear he will need plastic surgery.
And another man suffered a firework injury to his hand early on Saturday in Redgrave Street, Oldham, but became aggressive when an ambulance crew arrived and police were called.
