Posted on 05/14/2004 5:29:34 PM PDT by Pharmboy
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - First there was the girl who fell off her bike fleeing a flying cicada. Then a boy trying to swat a cicada out of the air with a baseball bat instead hit his friend in the nose.
The final straw came when another child hurt his hand trying to squish a cicada under a car's tires. Dr. Ray Baker of Cincinnati Children's Hospital was convinced -- cicadas can be a safety hazard to children.
Starting this week and lasting into June, billions and possibly even trillions of cicadas will emerge across much of the eastern half of the United States.
The thumb-sized insects are harmless, but they are large, noisy and clumsy. They climb out of their underground homes en masse after 17 years of slow development with only one goal in mind -- finding a mate.
A newly emerged adult cicada dries its wings on a tree in
Arlington, Virginia on May 12, 2004. Starting this week, across
much of the eastern United States, from Georgia north to
southern New York and as far west as Illinois, the cicadas will
emerge from their 17 years of sucking on tree roots
underground to engage in a two-week orgy of calling, mating,
laying eggs and then dying. (John Pryke/Reuters)
The last time this happened at such a scale was in 1987, and Baker was working in the emergency room of Cincinnati Children's.
"We just noticed when this all started, children were coming in and having injuries related to cicadas," Baker said in a telephone interview.
"After the third or fourth one we decided to keep a list."
They noted 12 injuries that were fairly significant, Baker said. He wrote a letter to the journal Pediatrics afterward, outlining the cases.
"They were all related to kids trying to get away from what they perceived as cicadas flying at them, or the children were trying to kill them," Baker said.
"They do freak people out. They are big. They are bigger than most other flying things and they really don't seem to have any tremendous purpose in which direction they are flying."
Several children fell off bikes, Baker said. "We had a concussion, a 9-year-old who was fleeing a cicada on her bicycle and fell off," he said.
Another child hit his head on a brick wall while he was running away from one of the insects.
"We had a stab wound to the arm from a kid who was trying to kill a cicada on the arm of another child but unfortunately he was using a knife," Baker added.
"Another kid tried to kick one under a lawn mower and cut his foot, and we saw a crush injury to the hand when a kid tried to put a cicada under the wheels of a moving car."
All parents can do is try and supervise their children and remind them that that the cicadas are harmless, Baker advised.
"There's a lot on the news, but I think that just gets kids kind of excited," he said. "Kids don't always do what they are told."
Parents: warn your kids about the cicadas and stay safe!
LOL! This is great stuff!
When cicadas are outlawed. . . .
John Effin' Kerry is OUTRAGED that Bush has let it get so far...
When I was a kid, I would catch them and use them as bait in the Ohio river, (live buzz bait), caught catfish like crazy!
"The final straw came when another child hurt his hand trying to squish a cicada under a car's tires."
Exactly how does that happen? Is the child driving the car, or is an adult not paying attention?
LOL, i saw one for the first time last year in NC, took on an hour long project to kill it. the noise scared the hell out of me.
I was victorious.
Thank you, that is exactly correct.
Mmmmmm. Put 4 in the house with the 6 cats, pitch in a little catnip, and who needs CBS? (12 foot ceilings help...) Entertainment doesn't get any better.
/john
this started under reagan in '87, and now it is rising again under a republican presidency.
this is a conspiracy...C O N....spiracy!
brought to you by It's Bush's Fault Productions.
I forgot what age ours were when we told them not to swat flies with baseball bats.
Mamma told me not to kill flies with a shotgun in the house, she never mentioned baseball bats.
In Texas, you know it's summertime b/c of the locusts that come out at night. Noisy and gross.
LMAO. That's good.
in the house we preferred handguns
It is all wrong and insensitive to swing at these gentle creatures with a baseball bat. Correct is to use badminton rackets. POW! You can whack them about 99 yards.
"When I was a kid, I would catch them and use them as bait in the Ohio river, (live buzz bait), caught catfish like crazy!"
We would catch them, then tie sewing thread or very light weight yarn around their middles. Then give them a length of the string and let them fly around like model airplanes. Gee! I hope the PETA people don't sue me for that one!
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