Goodbye Philippines, And Everywhere Else, Too

There’s drunk, there’s really drunk, and then, apparently, there’s let’s hug this enormous New Year’s Eve firecracker as it’s about to go off drunk.

A drunk man died after he embraced a giant firecracker called Goodbye Philippines as it was about to explode, health secretary Janet Garin told reporters.
“His jaw was shattered. He was so intoxicated he hugged the Goodbye Philippines,” Ms Garin said, adding the man was pronounced dead at the hospital.

This was just one of many incidents during the annual New Year’s celebrations in the Philippines, which I’m learning are quite the event. According to superstition, it’s necessary to make very loud noises in order to ward off bad luck. So to accomplish this there is much fireworks and random gunfire, so it’s not hard to figure out how things like this happen.

The health department listed 380 injuries due to fireworks and four others due to stray bullets.
In many hospitals across the country, firecracker victims rushed into emergency rooms grimacing in pain as they held their bloodied limbs.
An eight-year-old boy in the northern farming province of Nueva Vizcaya had three of his fingers amputated after a firecracker exploded in his hands, Ms Garin said.
At least nine children had their fingers amputated due to firecracker injuries, she said.

And most of them still probably got off easier than the 3000 plus people who were left homeless after a fireworks accident burned their shanty town to the ground.

All of which leads to the obvious question. Is it time to find a new, less fatality prone superstition or should they try to make more noise next year?