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ClapAlongChorus t1_j2bbocx wrote

I'm going to press (x) to doubt.

Edit: My doubt is not about whether or not fire can cause injury. Of course it can. I guess I should explain myself.

My apologies to the two people who've replied who apparently know of someone who had an injury from marshmallow or know of someone who had a friend of a friend who lost an eye. That is terrible for them.

But I have got to say, that is a fairly baroque way to suffer an enucleation or a corneal burn. I'm no expert in eye injuries but in my limited experience in children's emergency rooms and a year working with National Electronic Injury Surveillance System,* I would say the vast majority of injuries related to roasting marshmallows happen from (1) starting the fire (2) Falling into the fire (3) messing with the fire.

I'll also add that... I'm not sure how to express this... it takes a while to soften the interior of the marshmallow... over the past couple decades of roasting marshmallows I've seen people lose marshmallows off the end of their stick, but really not often, and it has always just gone into the fire. To lose an eye you'd have to have a soft marshmallow, propel it with enough force to send it over 4 feet away before it lost much altitude, and then be extremely unlucky to hit a relatively small, extremely vital target. When I hear people tell a story with such an extreme outcome, like losing an eye from a marshmellow, I feel like there is probably a much less extreme version of that story that is a lot more likely to happen, and i usually find that version to be more relevant.

All that being said, when I talk to kids about safety around a campfire, I would probably mention 5-30 things before I got to the danger of flying flaming marshmallows.

*Ok i'll be the first to tell you, NEISS would not be the best database to capture this type of injury. Like I said, i'm not a domain expert in eye injuries, but I have seen how a lot of people injure themselves, all i'm saying.

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noddintestudine OP t1_j2bev8h wrote

Do you think it's only a hypothesis? My good friend is forever traumatized since it happened to a guy he was with. Imagine mixing gelatin which is an animal byproduct with sugar, setting it on fire and pouring it in your eye. Yeah, its fucking horrible.

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CMDRBowie t1_j2brslb wrote

This is a stupid doubt, how can you not see that a sticky ball of flames is dangerous to wave around in peoples faces?

Had a girl on our Outdoor Ed trip in the 6th grade do this, and ruined the trip not just for our class, but every 6th grade class that came after. No more campfires at outdoor ed because she burned the fuck out of her face with a marshmallow.

Edit: I guess I could have more sympathy, but damn I think it is stupid to do this with a flaming object that is notorious for coming off of the stick. I always blamed her for ruining that trip despite the trauma I’m sure she experienced.

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