Chandigarh, Oct 25 (IANS): The Advanced Eye Centre of the PGIMER here on Tuesday said it got 28 patients, comprising three women, in the past 24 hours with firecracker injuries.
Of them, 16 were less than 15 years of age and the youngest was eight-years-old.
There were 17 patients from tri-city -- Chandigarh (11), Mohali (0) and Panchkula (six) -- and others from neighbouring states of Punjab (three), Haryana (five) and Himachal Pradesh (three). Fourteen patients were bystanders, while the others were bursting crackers themselves.
Out of 28 patients, 11 have open globe injuries and needed emergency surgeries. Nine of them were operated upon for serious injuries. The rest of the patients have either minor injuries or closed globe injuries and were managed conservatively.
"We have comparative data of two years and we feel it was comparatively higher this Diwali," an official statement by the PGIMER said.