Sir, we read the article 'Facial trauma due to e-scooters' by I. Turner and M. Shah.1 We wanted to address another grievous facial injury caused by kite strings. In northern India, kite flying is common during the winter festival of Lohri. During these festivals, 'kite fighting' is played mainly from rooftops of residential buildings, where people attempt to cut the opponent's kite string with theirs. People have recently employed techniques to strengthen their kite strings (plastic dor) by covering them with glass and glue, making the thread extremely sharp to cut other kite strings.2 The leftover kite strings are seldom removed and become tangled over power lines and buildings, frequently causing severe facial injuries and even fatalities to humans and birds.

Head and neck injuries account for 59%, whereas upper limb injuries account for 29% of all kite string injuries.3 There have been reports of injuries ranging from laceration injuries to lethal throat lacerations, secondary impact injuries where strings get wrapped around a person's feet, leading to falling, causing fracture of extremities or head injuries, and ocular injuries. The high rate of injuries in the head and neck region is attributed to the region's exposure while riding a two-wheeler, the most common mode of transport in thickly populated residential areas, often without helmets. Injuries sustained by two-wheeler riders are more severe than those sustained by pedestrians, as the injury's severity is determined by the vehicle's speed onto tightly entangled kite strings.

During the Lohri celebration (14 January 2023), our oral and maxillofacial surgery team at Christian Dental College Ludhiana, India, treated ten cases of injuries caused by kite strings. Figure 1 shows kite string-induced facial trauma cases reported at the trauma unit. Although the local government has banned glass-coated kite strings, there needs to be a more effective public awareness campaign about the risks of trauma caused by kite strings to sensitise the general public.4

Fig. 1
figure 1

a, b) Kite string-induced facial lacerations

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