Five-year-old Joshua Ru­fus can write his name, play video games, and get him­self dressed. While those ac­tiv­i­ties may sound nor­mal for a child his age, Joshua does all of these with one hand. Three years ago, when Joshua was just two years old, his right hand was blown off by a scratch bomb. The tod­dler some­how got hold of a scratch bomb and held it up to a lit deya in the gallery of his fam­i­ly’s home when traged struck.

The Sun­day Guardian vis­it­ed Joshua and his fam­i­ly ear­li­er this week at their Debe home. The bub­bly young­ster was quite ex­cit­ed by the vis­it and ran around singing the theme song for his favourite car­toon, Paw Pa­trol. Af­ter in­tro­duc­tions were made, he of­fered to show this re­porter his new pair of shoes, which he seemed es­pe­cial­ly proud of.

His moth­er, Mindy Sookram, said he has lit­tle to no mem­o­ry of the in­ci­dent. On No­vem­ber 22, Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Stu­art Young an­nounced a ban on scratch bombs and said any­one found us­ing them will face pros­e­cu­tion for pos­ses­sion of an il­le­gal weapon.

"There are times when he says he doesn’t know but oth­er times when he would say lit­tle things so we are not sure if he can re­mem­ber, lit­tle chil­dren do make up sto­ries some­times. For a while he nev­er spoke about it, it was like he had blocked it out com­plete­ly. If you asked him he would say he didn’t know any­thing about it," she said.

Joshua was ward­ed at the San Fer­nan­do Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal (SFGH) for two months fol­low­ing the in­ci­dent.

"He can re­mem­ber his hos­pi­tal stay and he talks about it some­times," Sookram said.

Asked how she felt about the ban on scratch bombs, Sookram said, "I to­tal­ly agree with it. I wish it would have been put in­to place soon­er, but I am glad it is fi­nal­ly here."

Be­fore the in­ci­dent, Joshua used his right hand to do every­thing. But Sookram said his in­jury has not stopped his de­vel­op­ment as he con­tin­ues to strive.

“He was right-hand­ed but he has learned to write with his left hand now. I don’t find his in­jury holds him back—he will try to dress, al­though it is hard he tries to do it him­self. He eats by him­self, he can go to the toi­let by him­self, he does every­thing for him­self. He has learned to adapt.”

Joshua was ea­ger to show off his hand­writ­ing skills, print­ing his name in a copy­book un­der the watch­ful eye of his moth­er and then pro­claim­ing proud­ly, “That is my name…Joshua Ru­fus!”

Asked about the events of that fate­ful night, Joshua’s fa­ther, Mar­cus Ru­fus, be­came emo­tion­al, say­ing he re­mem­bers it all with painful clar­i­ty.

“We had just bought the car and it was parked in the yard, it was my sis­ter’s birth­day and we were go­ing to drop a lit­tle gift for her but she reached same time. The car door was open and I went to close it when I heard this bang,” Ru­fus said.

“I shout­ed "Mindy" and ran in­to the gallery. He was ly­ing on the ground with blood around him. I picked him up and my wife came run­ning up. I told her to get a tow­el for his hand...I re­mem­ber say­ing, "It re­al­ly bad"…

"Min­utes turned in­to hours...I felt like I was go­ing crazy but I was hold­ing his hand in mine and I just watched my wife and said, "It bad," be­cause I knew."

Ru­fus cra­dled his younger son un­til an am­bu­lance ar­rived and took them to the SFGH.

Lessons learned

He said the in­ci­dent has changed the way his fam­i­ly lives and es­pe­cial­ly changed how they cel­e­brate Di­vali.

"Most peo­ple don’t know the re­al reper­cus­sions of any­thing un­til it ac­tu­al­ly hap­pens to them or some­body in their fam­i­ly. Like this Di­vali, we lit our deyas but we weren’t home, we lit our deyas be­fore we left. We don’t al­low them to play in the yard, they don’t even get starlights, the on­ly thing we al­low them to play with are fun snaps," Ru­fus said.

Joshua, who was sit­ting on his fa­ther's lap, chimed in with a smile, "We were throw­ing plen­ty fun snaps out­side."

Ru­fus said he was thank­ful that Joshua does not face any dis­crim­i­na­tion at school from his peers. Joshua at­tends Pe­nal Gov­ern­ment Pri­ma­ry School where he is a First Year pupil.

“Every­one treats him the same as they would any oth­er child, there is no dif­fer­ence.”

Every new ex­pe­ri­ence has be­come a learn­ing op­por­tu­ni­ty for him as a fa­ther, he said.

"We have been to­geth­er for eight years and I feel like every day I learn some­thing new as a fa­ther, they amaze me the things that they can do at their ages, they are the best thing in my life," he said.

Ru­fus said his oth­er son, sev­en-year-old An­tho­ny, is Joshua’s guardian an­gel.

"He has a very good big broth­er, his broth­er looks out for him and helps him along all the time, es­pe­cial­ly since they are now go­ing to the same school," he said.

While both par­ents said loud nois­es do not seem to phase Joshua, Mindy ad­mit­ted that she pan­icks when­ev­er she hears a loud ex­plo­sion.

"Up un­til now I still wor­ry about it. He is not scared or both­ered by any loud nois­es but I will get pan­icked if I hear some­thing like that."

Ban on scratch bombs, 'a na­tion­al nui­sance'

On No­vem­ber 22 Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Stu­art Young an­nounced a ban on the im­por­ta­tion of scratch bombs and de­clared that any­one caught with scratch bombs will be charged for pos­ses­sion of a dan­ger­ous weapon.

He de­scribed it as "a re­al na­tion­al nui­sance".

Over the past few years, there have nu­mer­ous in­stances of peo­ple, an­i­mals, and prop­er­ty be­ing dam­aged by scratch bombs.

Dur­ing this year’s Di­vali cel­e­bra­tions, a fam­i­ly of nine lost their home when a fire broke out. The blaze has been blamed on scratch bombs. In 2016, Tal­paro grand­moth­er, Sal­ly Ann Cuffie, her son, daugh­ter-in-law, and her in­fant grand­daugh­ter were dri­ving through Las Lo­mas when a scratch bomb was flung in­to their car. Be­fore the bomb could ex­plode, Cuffie grabbed it and tried to throw it out the win­dow but it blew up in her hands, dam­ag­ing her fin­gers and leav­ing her hos­pi­talised. In 2015 a Freeport man lost sev­er­al of his fin­gers when a scratch blew up in his hands.

The prob­lem of scratch bombs has al­so been preva­lent in schools and this year, a Barataria South Sec­ondary school teacher was hos­pi­talised af­ter a stu­dent at­tacked him for try­ing to take away his scratch bombs.

Speak­ing to the me­dia af­ter the ban was an­nounced, Young said the po­lice can start en­forc­ing this law im­me­di­ate­ly. Those caught break­ing the law will be charged and hauled be­fore the courts.

Sev­er­al pe­ti­tions call­ing for a ban on scratch bombs and greater reg­u­la­tion of fire­works use flood­ed so­cial me­dia in the days lead­ing up to and fol­low­ing Di­vali.

Safe­ty tips

As the Christ­mas sea­son ap­proach­es, many fam­i­lies may want to buy and set off fire­works. Al­though there are no safe fire­works for chil­dren, there are pre­ven­ta­tive mea­sures that adults can take to safe­guard chil­dren from harm when fire­works are be­ing set off.

• Con­sid­er skip­ping at-home fire­works—There pub­lic fire­works dis­plays that are put on by pro­fes­sion­als for New Years and oth­er hol­i­days. These shows may give fam­i­lies the en­ter­tain­ment they seek, with­out putting their young ones in harm’s way.

• Make sure you buy le­gal fire­works—Scratch bombs are now banned in T&T be­cause of the risk of us­ing them, so keep chil­dren away from them at all times.

• Keep chil­dren away from fire­works—While it may seem fun for young­sters to set off their own fire­works, do­ing so can put them at risk for se­ri­ous burns or dis­fig­ure­ment. Do not al­low young chil­dren to light fire­works.

• Find al­ter­na­tives—There are glow sticks and oth­er light-up toys that chil­dren can en­joy as much as or even more than fire­works.

• Cre­ate a safe­ty zone—If you in­tend to set off a fire­works dis­play, en­sure your chil­dren are kept at a safe dis­tance, you can con­sid­er set­ting up a safe­ty zone where the chil­dren can stay with adult su­per­vi­sion to look at the fire­works.

• Keep a buck­et of wa­ter near­by—In case some­thing goes wrong, you will be able to put out a fire be­fore it spreads.

• Do not try to re-ig­nite failed fire­works—If the fire­works do not go off when they are first lit, they can be de­fec­tive and blow up in your hands if you try to re-light them.

• Nev­er throw or point fire­works at an­oth­er per­son or pet—do­ing so can cause se­ri­ous in­jury and even death.

• Have an emer­gency plan—If all oth­er safe­ty mea­sures fail, en­sure you and your fam­i­ly know what to do in times of a fire­works-re­lat­ed ac­ci­dent.