Salute ear damage!

[Liftanddeafen]

Fired up some salutes for the 5th the other week and IMO i was far to close to the salutes and because of this one of my ears has constant ringing and muffled hearing. I'm just saying this because, if you do make salutes be careful with them not only when making them but also firing them because they are ridiculously loud for your ears and potentially long term harmful.

[hindsight]

http://www.amateurpyro.com/forums/topic/8960-is-your-hearing-going/

[dan999ification]

I'm sorry to read this and hope it does not last.

They weren't in the air then?

 

Dan.

Edited November 19, 2013 by dan999ification

[Zumber]

I honestly dont like stuffs that produces loul noise.

I wish you will recover from this soon.

[Liftanddeafen]

Yeah they were in the air proper shells. Was a 2" salute with 60 grams of 42g kclo4 and 18g German ECkart. The stuff is very potent and the loudest I have come across so beware

[nater]

Even the thump from a shell lifting is loud enough to cause hearing damage. Head, ear and eye protection is a must on a firing line.

[Arthur]

Check with your GP, some things are temporary, some can be corrected and sadly some ear damage is permanent. ear defenders are NOT optional, I've seen people who use foam earplugs AND then headphone style ear defenders over the top.

[DoodieSmoothie]

I know this thread is old but. I had ringing in the ear once from a 2-3g flash powder ground salute. I was 12 feet away, but i fired it in between 2 wooden buildings, which made the sound bounce and appear stronger. I've never gotten ringing in the ears from anything else that is firework related.

[SeaMonkey]

My hearing is somewhat impaired due to military exposure to

munitions and naval gunfire. I once lost my hearing completely

for several hours following one explosion. And yes, the very loud

ringing from inside the head but no ability to hear any external

sounds.

 

As my hearing gradually began to recover, for about two weeks

when people talked to me the sound my ears registered was like

hearing Donald Duck. While it was at its worst, telephone conversations

were very,very difficult due to the weird voice distortion.

 

The distortions gradually lessened over time and after about three

months my hearing in one ear was almost back to normal but the other

ear had "dead zones" in the audible frequency spectrum.

 

It's been long enough now that my hearing is almost recovered

except for the very high end; anything above about 10 khz I

cannot hear but normal conversations are not difficult and

listening to music is once again enjoyable. Time seems to heal

many of our ailments which at first seem permanent. I don't

know of any former shipmates who completely lost their hearing

but many who have "dead areas" in their frequency responses

and nearly all have no high frequency hearing.

 

Ear protection is nowadays much more strongly emphasized and

anyone who is ever in near proximity (within about 50 feet) to

explosive sounds should positively be wearing it.

 

I should add that the ringing in the ears never ever goes away.

At times very loud. One just learns to live with it.

Edited April 26, 2020 by SeaMonkey

[rykermcdermott]

Yea I have gotten to the point where I wear heavy duty hearing protection in areas with even mildly elevated ambient noise (think light machines or something). Both my father and grandfather have severe hearing loss and I have to practically scream at them to get them to hear me, it's not fun for me or them. As SeaMonkey pointed out with his experience,your hearing will hopefully come back with time. I have also had that sensation of hearing someone talking to me but it sounding like they are talking through a pillow or something, but that has more to do with my artificial middle ear : D