Fourth of July may be just around the corner, but in many neighborhoods fireworks are already here.  That may excite children, but some not sharing the enthusiasm are those working in America''s emergency rooms. An estimated 13,000 people are injured annually by fireworks injuries with a big spike in those numbers in late June and early July.

According to Joseph Primrose, MD, an emergency room physician at Barnes-Jewish Hospital, the number one problem is parents who let children handle fireworks.

"Proven studies show that when you let children play with fireworks by themselves the injury rate goes sky high," says Dr. Primrose. "Having said that, even when they''re supervised, 50 percent of all the injuries in the United States are still injuries to children."

Dr. Primrose says he sees too many instances where parents let their kids play with fireworks, leading to horrible results.

"People think sparklers and snakes are fine for kids but if a child is less than nine years old they shouldn''t be allowed to hold a sparkler," says Dr. Primrose. "Sparklers have enough temperature in them to melt gold, so it doesn''t take long for them to start melting fingertips."

Doctors say the most common injury they see originates from bottle rockets. Dr. Primrose says a bottle rocket''s wingless design makes it impossible to direct. However, his big issue is their explosiveness.

"Bottle rockets actually contain gun powder, they''re considered a class C explosive because they have under 60 milligrams and anything above that is classified as a bomb," says Dr. Primrose. "When you set them off, there''s no predictability to what will happen."

Overall, Dr. Primrose says people should leave the firework displays to the professionals.

"If fireworks were banned it probably wouldn''t be the end of the world," he says. "The bottom line is if I had my way I would only allow fireworks to be set off by professionals."