Cover Story

On a summer’s evening in 1993, Jonathan Jackson was playing with a friend outside his grandmother’s home in Grand Prairie, Texas. A group of neighborhood kids began lighting bottle rockets nearby, and as the fireworks whizzed around them, Jackson and his friend ran for cover behind the house. Just as he was about to reach safety, Jackson took a quick look back at the kids — and a bottle rocket slammed into his face and right eye. "It might have been curiosity — or fate," he says of his decision.

Through NFPA’s Alliance to Stop Consumer Fireworks (www.nfpa.org/fireworks), a coalition of health and safety organizations that informs the public on the device’s dangers, Jackson has spoken out about his ordeal to put a human face on the statistics. According to NFPA data, fireworks caused an estimated 22,500 reported fires, including 1,400 total structure fires, 500 vehicle fires, and 20,600 outdoor and other fires, in 2008, and hospitals treated an estimated 7,000 people for fireworks-related injuries that year. Despite these numbers, only four states ban the sale of consumer fireworks. "There’s a lot of misinformation about how dangerous fireworks really are, and NFPA continues to fight that battle," says Lorraine Carli, NFPA’s vice president of communications and lead contact for the Alliance.

Even as a child, Jackson says, he rarely considered his vision impairment a disability; three months after his accident, he signed up for peewee football. At the same time, however, he admits that his life might have been "significantly different" had he not lost the vision in his eye, especially considering his prodigious athletic gifts. "My size and stature could have made me an NBA forward, and potentially an NFL tight end," says the 6-foot-5-inch, 210-pound Jackson, "but [the accident] landed me where it landed me."

Where he landed was track and field. A multi-sport athlete in high school, Jackson went on to become a two-time All-American triple jumper at Texas Christian University. "In a sport like track and field, athletic ability is more important than the vision," Jackson says. He ruptured his patellar tendon at the 2008 NCAA championships, and underwent 22 months of rehabilitation. Now he’s back on the track, training in preparation for the 2011 World Track and Field Championships in South Korea and, beyond that, the 2012 Olympics in London.

"It’s important that my story is told so [my accident] doesn’t happen to anyone else," says Jackson, whose father was a Dallas firefighter for 18 years. "It’s not about safely handling fireworks or if you’re doing the right thing. It’s about what can happen from fireworks. The accident happened to me when I was trying to do the right thing, when I was escaping."

— Fred Durso, Jr.

In this Section:
			NFPA + Disabilities: Where We've Been, Where We Are, Where We're Going A look at some of the many efforts NFPA has undertaken to address the needs of people with disabilities.
			Safe House Mother + daughter sprinkler advocates.
			Mr. T Transportation accessibility manager
			Sound Advice Deaf and hard of hearing emergency preparedness expert.
			On Track Olympic hopeful.
			Teed Off Fire department chief.
			Hidden Challenge Disabilities policy advocate.