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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.

My oldest brother has a burn scar on his forehead from one.

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.

Damn that was a close one, glad he's mostly fine,

Shocked that we weren't issued with safety glasses when I was in the Cubs...

Exactly this happened to one of our scouts, fortunately didn’t scar

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.

thank god I don’t like marshmallows, let alone grilled marshmallows

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TIL a lot of people are lunatics who try to shake a tiny flame out instead of simply blowing on it like a candle.

Who are you? My dad?!!

LPT means Life Pro Tips right? Most on this sub is just dumb shit and should be common knowledge. Where are the actual pro tips that can improve your life :/

Bro, wait until you go camping with city people... They aren't used to seeing fire so they panic

Oh I'm well aware of how bad they are. I grew up in the sticks and moved to Boston in my late 20s...fucking zombies everywhere.

Why would it help to blow on someone's eye? Get the marshmallow out of it instead!

Lost an eye, but at least didn't scar.

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Grew up north of Boston, lots of summercamp.....gotta teach em young!

When my sister was in girl scouts ~ 20 years ago, they taught them how to build a fire, then lit a lamp under some kindling to show it "on fire"...... Cause a real fire was too dangerous.....

When I was in boyscouts we used to throw cans of soda on the fire and wait for them to explode.

I can't believe we never had any scalding injuries from those camping trips.