For many folks, fireworks are part of the fun on the Fourth of July, but doctors warn you to be careful this holiday to prevent injuries.

Every year St. John's Hospital in Springfield sees about a dozen injuries, many to the eye, because of fireworks.

18 year old Austin Howerton is still without sight in his left eye after a friend accidentally shot a roman candle in it last Fourth of July.

"She yelled something, and I turned around and hers was already lit, and it shot off and got me directly in the eye," Austin said. "It didn't hurt my eye, just my eyelids. I could feel it burning because it melted my nerves in my actual eye, so it kind of went numb."

"A roman candle which spews out flame and debris at 1300 degrees, and it coated surface of eye, burning cornea and sclera," Dr. Shachar Tauber, a St. John’s Opthalmologist, said.

Three surgeries, lots of eye drops and a year later, Austin's eye is improved, but still has a long way to go before he will gain just minimal sight back.

He says he can make out colors and motion, but says it's like looking through wax paper.

"We have to get him a new window because when you look at his eye, you can see front part of eye isn't like his other. It's glossed over with scar. Fortunately, scar has blood vessels in it, so you look at it, this is living eye. We have to clean that all off and give him new window, new cornea," Dr. Tauber said.

Dr. Tauber says he sees about seven firework eye injuries in the Ozarks each year.

"Two thirds of eye injuries are bottle rocket," he said.

His best injury prevention advice is not to shoot them off at all. He says go to professional displays instead. But if you insist, be smart.

"They should wear safety goggles. They should give safety goggles to anyone they think is going to be in area of this," Dr. Tauber said.

For Austin, he plans to steer clear of fireworks altogether this year.

"Probably going to stay inside. Not scared of them, just don't want to take chance and do something to good eye," Austin said.

Dr. Tauber says 400 Americans are blinded every year from fireworks injuries.