Fear the mandoline

Katie’s finger, a mandoline victim, bandaged at the Emergency Room.

Every Fourth of July you hear parents warn their kids not to play with fireworks. “You’ll lose a finger,” they say, similar to adults warning Ralphie about losing his eye playing with a B.B. gun in A Christmas Story.

But every year more than 9,000 children and adults are injured in a fireworks accident, according to the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission.