Fast Fiction

It’s not getting the most press, so I thought I’d do my bit.

Children are getting injured by the appearance of the 17 year cicadas.

Yes, it’s true. Hospitals have noticed a rise in injuries related to cicadas. During the winter cicada related injuries fall off precipitously, but now that spring has arrived in the east and the cicadas have emerged from their underground slumber.

Pediatrician Warns Parents About Cicadas

By Maggie Fox, Health and Science Correspondent

Fri May 14, 2004. 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.

- snip -

“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.

The article goes on to detail other freak accidents caused by cicadas (let’s be clear, these are children that wouldn’t have put their hands under moving auto wheels or run into brick walls otherwise - they’re perfectly normal, intelligent children).

This being a 17 year event, I think we can start planning for the next cycle now. There’s little need for us to waste public health education money on vaccinations and basic medical and dental coverage for low income families. The real threat to America’s youth is cicadas.