More stray bullet victims in Cebu this year: 8 cases

Eight persons were wounded by stray bullets in Cebu during the Christmas and New Year revelry, a sharp rise from last year’s two cases, said health officials.

The number includes a 50-year-old woman from barangay Tisa, Cebu City, who was walking on the road to her house before midnight of Christmas Day.

About the same number of victims from firecrackers were noticed at 45 this year.

No arrests were made by police and the identity of the gun holders remained hard to trace.

“It is sad that some gun owners have not heeded our advice.  Next season, we will focus our campaign on this,” said Regional Director  Susanna Madarieta of the Department of Health (DOH).

Three stray bullet victims were from Cebu City, and one each from Danao City, Lapu-Lapu City, and towns of  Consolacion town, Liloan and Minglanilla based on monitoring of the Dep’t of Health from Dec. 19 to Jan. 2, 2012.

Of the eight stray bullet victims, all were male except one.

Madarieta said the agency would coordinate with the police and private security agencies next time.

She said they would ask that security guards, not just policemen and soldiers, tape the nozzle of their firearms.

Seven-year-old Vince Laurence Sasotara will begin the year without  two fingers on his right hand.

The lighted firecracker he picked up outside his house in barangay Tuyom, Carcar town blew up in his hands about 5 p.m. while his family was busy preparing for their media noche.

“He was just playing when it exploded in his hands,” said his father Romeo, 41.

The family spent the first hours of New Year’s Day in the trauma center of Vicente Sotto Medical Center in Cebu City, where doctors had to amputate the rest of his index finger and thumb.

At the hospital, lying in bed with his right hand covered in a blue bandage, the boy, in a whisper, said no, when asked if he would  try playing with firecrackers again.

Vince was one of  the 53 victims of violent New Year revelry, a number that includes eight cases of stray bullets in Metro Cebu in Christmas and New Year.

The injury surveillance report conducted by the DOH-Regional Epidemiological and Surveillance Unit (RESU) tracked cases from December  to Jan. 2, 2012 in Central Visayas.

A total of 52 cases are from Cebu province, including three victims of burns with amputations, 38 burns without amputation, two eye injuries and one abrasion and eight from stray bullets.

Last year, RESU-7 recorded 50 cases of injuries for the same period in Central Visayas, including two victims of stray bullets.

Victims this year were mostly males, and between 2 to 62 years old.

All accidents took place in the streets. Fourteen percent of the victims were under the influence of alcohol.

The common firecrackers which injured the revelers were  the piccolo, kwitis, whistle bomb and shotgun.

The source of the stray bullets are difficult to trace, she said, said Madarieta.

She said it’s hard to say whether they were fired by private gun holders or men in uniform.

The initial assessment of the Cebu Provincial Police Office was that there were fewer incidents of firecracker injuries and indiscriminate firing.

Supt. Eduardo Saavedra, deputy director for administration, said only three victims of accidental firecracker blasts were reported in towns of Balamban, Naga and Barili compared to 16 cases a year ago.

Data from Mandaue and Lapu-Lapu cities were not yet available.

In Toledo city, a bullet of  a .22 caliber of firearm hit a house rented by Salud Dequiña, 35, in  Magsaysay Hills, Poblacion last Dec. 31.

The bullet went through the roof and landed on the bedroom floor. No one was injured, said police.

Last Dec. 31, a 65-year-old man in barangay Malhiao, Badian town, injured himself his left hand when his gun accidentally discharged.

Santiago Paraculles said he was cleaning his .22 caliber magnum at home when it went off. He was brought to the Badian District Hospital.

Cebu City police were still gathering data on stray bullet cases, including one that hit the house of 70-year-old Manolito Lumuag in brarangay Pardo on New Year’s Day.

No one was injured, said Pardo police.

Lumauag and his family were in the dining room when a bullet of unknown caliber  hit the wall near the ceiling, and ricocheted to the floor at 12:04 a.m.

Cebu City police chief Melvin Ramon Buenafe said there were seven victims of accidental firecracker explosion who were brought to the hospital last Jan. 1. /Candeze R. Mongaya and Jhunnex Napallacan with a report from Correspondent Rhea Ruth V. Rosell