PHOENIX — The U.S. military flew six victims from the tragic New Year’s fireworks explosion in Honolulu to an Arizona facility due to limited bed space at Hawaii’s only burn center, officials said.
The fatal explosions were set off by illegal fireworks used during New Year’s celebrations in the Salt Lake area, a neighborhood in Honolulu, Hawaii, according to the Honolulu Police Department. Police said the blasts occurred around midnight local time after an aerial cake firework — which is made up of multiple tubes — tipped over at a party and shot into other fireworks.
Three women were killed in the incident and more than 20 others were seriously and critically injured, police said. Authorities announced Monday that a fourth victim, identified as a 3-year-old boy, died at around 1:30 a.m. at a hospital, the Honolulu Civil Beat and Hawaii News Now reported.
USA TODAY reached out to the Honolulu Police Department for comment on Monday.
The Arizona Burn Center said six surviving victims arrived in Phoenix from Hawaii on Saturday night. The six victims are in their 20s and 30s, and all have extensive burns, according to Dr. Kevin Foster, director of the Arizona Burn Center.
Hawaii Gov. Josh Green said the U.S. military flew the six victims to Phoenix for “follow-on medical care.” The six were chosen due to the severity of traumatic injuries and burns sustained during the incident, according to Green.
“Our heartfelt prayers go out to the resilient survivors and their families affected by the Aliamanu (Salt Lake) fireworks tragedy,” Green said in a statement on X. “As they are transported to an Arizona burn center aboard a C-17 military plane, they carry with them the strength and support of our entire state.”
‘Almost everybody has multiple projectile injuries’
Hawaii’s only burn center is located on the state’s third-largest island of Oʻahu — where the incident took place — and has limited capacity. Dr. Michael White, chief clinical officer at Valleywise Health, and Foster said the Arizona Burn Center has the ability and capacity to help the six victims.
“In addition to taking care of the patients from Hawaii, we are one of the largest burn centers in the United States, and we still have to take care of the patients here in the southwestern United States,” Foster said during a news conference Monday.
Green authorized a C-17 military transport aircraft to fly the six victims into Phoenix and it arrived at Sky Harbor International Airport at around 8:30 p.m. local time Saturday. Phoenix fire personnel collaborated with state and federal agencies to ensure the victims were transported safely.
“They were transported in six different ambulances, the relatively short distance from Sky Harbor Airport to Valleywise Health Medical Center and up to the fourth floor, which is where the Arizona Burn Center is,” Foster said. “I’ve seen a few mass casualty events. And this was really amazing, how we were able to get all of these people working together and transport six really, really sick people over a very long distance.”
The person with the least burns had almost of their body burned, which is about 45% of total body surface area, while the largest burn was just under 80% of total body surface area, according to Foster. Each of the six victims requires a breathing tube and ventilator management, and four of the victims are medically induced comas, Foster said.
Foster noted that many of the victims required emergency surgeries before they were able to be transported to Phoenix. Some of the victims also sustained several types of injuries, including traumatic, burn, and flame injuries, according to Foster.
“There were a lot of explosions and a lot of particles flying through the air,” Foster said. “And almost everybody has multiple projectile injuries, and some of them are severe and some of them not so severe.”
White said all six have a good chance of survival and that Valleywise Health does not expect more patients to be flown in. Foster said the victims will spend several months at the Arizona Burn Center before they are discharged back to Hawaii.
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Honolulu fire chief: ‘It really looked like a war zone’
Around 1:45 a.m. local time on Jan. 1, the Honolulu Police Department said on X that there was a “fireworks-related incident with multiple causalities” in the city’s Salt Lake area, a major residential zone just east of Pearl Harbor on Oʻahu.
Two women were pronounced dead at the scene while another woman died later after she was transported to an area hospital, according to police. Over 20 other victims were injured.
During a Jan. 1 news conference, Honolulu Police Chief Joe Logan said the incident occurred at a New Year’s Eve party, where people were lighting fireworks that resulted in the explosion. Logan said a person lit a firework cake that contained around 50 individual aerial fireworks.
The cake then tipped or fell over, and rocketed into other crates that contained additional fireworks, according to Logan. Authorities estimated fireworks recovered at the scene cost tens of thousands of dollars.
“It really looked like a war zone, and a bomb pretty much dropped right in front of that house,” Honolulu Fire Chief Sheldon Hao said during the news conference.
Videos posted on social media appear to show dozens of fireworks exploding in a massive, bright blaze, with plumes of smoke rising in the air. The blast appeared to explode on a resident’s front lawn, along a dense neighborhood street dotted with parked cars.
Most people injured sustained burns, but injuries also included those caused by shrapnel that were “gruesome,” said Honolulu Emergency Services Department director Dr. Jim Ireland.
Honolulu police said the person who lit the fireworks, as well as those who potentially supplied the illegal ones, could face criminal prosecution pending the investigation.
Hawaii leaders call for action against illegal fireworks
Following the incident, state and local leaders repeated calls to address the state’s illegal fireworks trade. According to the Honolulu Civil Beat, illegal fireworks have long been an issue in the state and have caused injuries for years.
The online news organization reported that while authorities have confiscated large caches of fireworks in recent years, they have failed to track where the fireworks came from. Both Honolulu Mayor Rick Blangiardi and Green said officials will be enforcing tougher penalties and strengthening law enforcement resources to stop the import of illegal fireworks.
“This incident is a painful reminder of the danger posed by illegal fireworks,” Blangiardi said at the Jan. 1 news conference. “They put lives at risk, they drain our first responders, and they disrupt our neighborhoods. But most heartbreakingly this tragedy was entirely preventable. The growing prevalence of illegal fireworks on our island has turned it into a night of risk and devastation.”
Fireworks are fundamentally dangerous and “should be left to the professionals,” White noted. “They are explosive devices. (There’s) risk for burns and risk for injuries such as this,” he said.
According to the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission, there were eight deaths and an estimated 9,700 injuries involving fireworks in 2023. Out of the eight deaths, five were due to firework misuse and two due to a device malfunction, the commission said.
The commission also noted that between 2008 and 2023, injuries from fireworks across the country have increased overall.
Contributing: Claire Thornton, USA TODAY
This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Hawaii fireworks explosion victims were flown to Arizona burn center
