"Courage"

-- January 2002.  Brazil Russian Roulette has always been a breeding ground for natural selection, but the men involved in this story deserve extra consideration for their unique approach to this self-destructive game.

On New Year’s Eve, a man and his friend were befogged by a traditional Brazilian liquor called pinga, when they began playing Russian roulette with holiday fireworks.

Their version of the game consisted of lighting fireworks, and holding them in their mouths to see who could delay longest. The man who discarded the explosive closest to the point of detonation was the victor in this battle of wills.

Their blatant disregard for personal safety was matched only by their foolish bravery. The man was the winner, holding one of the fireworks in his mouth a bit too long, and thereby earning praise for his "courage" at his funeral.

"Idgits"

-- It seems a bunch of drunks in the great state of Missouri were getting a little too rowdy on the 4th of July. The neighbors called the local police after the gang of darn fool idgits got a little too noisy.

To avoid getting arrested, one of the locals stashed a packet of fireworks in the oven and then completely forgot about them. Then at around 3 am, the owner of the home they were partying at decided to bake some lasagna and turned the oven on. The ensuing explosion blew the oven out one of the walls and shattered the rest of the exterior walls.  Amazingly, no one was seriously hurt.

Hand Grenade

-- January 2002, Croatia.  A Croatian was killed while trying to open a hand grenade with a chainsaw. He wanted to retrieve the explosive to make firecrackers for the New Year’s holiday.

Fish Kill

-- 16 June 1998, Illinois.  A man drowned in Fox Lake after he and a friend inadvertently blasted a hole in the bottom of their rowboat with a quarter stick of dynamite. The man, twenty-nine, and his unidentified friend were relaxing on the lake on Sunday in a fourteen-foot aluminum boat, when they decided to toss the M-250 explosive into the water. They intended to kill fish with the blast, not themselves, said chief deputy coroner.

A sudden gust of wind pushed their boat over the firecracker, and the boat sank about a hundred yards from shore. The man drowned; the friend swam safely to land.

Bees Nest

-- Los Angeles, CA.  A man, 33, and his brother decided to remove a bees nest from a shed on their property with the aid of a pineapple. A pineapple is an illegal firecracker which is the explosive equivalent of one-half stick of dynamite. They ignited the fuse and retreated to watch from inside their home, behind a window some 10 feet away from the hive/shed. The concussion of the explosion shattered the window inwards, seriously lacerating the man. Deciding he need stitches, the brother headed out to go to a nearby hospital. While walking towards their car, the man was stung three times by the surviving bees. Unbeknownst to either brother, the man was allergic to bee venom, and died of suffocation enroute to the hospital.

 

You be the judge.

-- Having just returned from a critical care conference, I find myself glued to the keyboard, trying to relate a basic truth that I have just learned.   Like many other conferences I have attended, a few of the speakers began their presentations with a case history so absolutely ludicrous that you just knew, deep down inside, that it had to be true. The stories are so mind-boggling that you find yourself laughing uncontrollably. You feel embarrassed to laugh at someone’s misfortune, but you laugh just the same. Perhaps you laugh because the stories are so ridiculous that they simply are rejected by your mind.  No one could really be that stupid. I’ll let you be the judge.

 At a recent trauma conference during a lecture on the need for surgical airways (emergency tracheotomies), we were shown a slide of a young man whose face was so horribly mangled that all you could see was his eyes.  Anyway it was obvious that he was a victim of some tremendous explosive force and, incidentally, was in need of a surgical airway. The history we were given was “…and this young man decided to put a lit cherry bomb in his mouth.”

 Before you come to the conclusion that it was a suicide attempt let me add that I cornered the doctor after his lecture and he assured me that that was not the case. Now I know that disbelief would be a logical response but I have seen cases in the ER just as bad. I recall asking a man who had sustained a gunshot wound through his left eye what had happened. His story was that he found a 38 caliber bullet and decided to balance it on the end of a BB gun barrel and try to shoot it.

 When I asked, “What did you think would happen?”, he just shrugged.

Fireball

-- Three young men in Oklahoma were enjoying the coming Fourth of July holiday and wanted to apparently test fire some fireworks.  Their real problem  was that their launch pad and seating arrangements were atop a hundred-thousand-gallon fuel distillation storage tank. Oddly enough, some fumes were ignited, producing a fireball seen for miles and miles. They were launched, no doubt, countless thousands of feet into the air and were found dead 250 yards from their respective seats.

Love Cheat Tried To Kill Wife
With Giant Fireworks

2004 -- A caravan park owner tried to murder his wife with a box of fireworks, a court heard yesterday.

A man, 56, allegedly forced wifes head into a lit box of industrial-strength fireworks.

He denies planning to kill his wife, and inducing her to sign up to a £100,000 life insurance policy. she had allegedly learned that he had been cheating on her with a woman half his age.

The alleged attack took place on October 30 last year in a cottage at his caravan park.

It's claimed he seized her by the head, struggled with her, pushed her head towards an open fire, then ignited the box of fireworks. As the fireworks exploded, he allegedly pushed his wife's head into the box.

Jurors were yesterday shown17 pages of photos of injuries on her head and body. The pictures showed cuts and abrasions to her face, shoulder, back, elbow, hands and legs.

The jury also saw pictures of the cottage, with bloodstaining around the door and a smashed window. There had been a fire in the living room and a number of scorch marks could be seen on the walls.

Around a dozen fireworks, including one called an Airbomb and another called a Green Eyed Monster, were recovered from around the building. Some were spent, others had not gone off.

The fireworks were made for public displays. Some were two feet long and came with warnings to the public not to stand within 75ft of them.

The man denies severely injuring his wife, attempting to murder her and holding her in the cottage against her will.

The trial at the High Court continues.

 

Dozens injured in Spanish fireworks fiesta

 The Spanish news agency says more than a hundred people were injured during a fireworks festival in the eastern town of Elche.

The festival, known as the Noche del Alba, involves hundreds of young people throwing fireworks at each other.

Most of the injured were treated at first aid stations or the local hospital but two people -- one a very young child and a woman -- were seriously burned and taken to Alicante for treatment.

 

Los Angeles
Fireworks blast costs man his hand
2 other fingers

2005 -- A firework explosion cost a man his left hand and two fingers of his right hand, authorities said.

The man, 30, was injured Sunday and his remaining fingers were "not in good shape," said Los Angeles County fire Capt.

The pyrotechnic was a ball with a fuse that was designed to be inserted into a tube, but he held onto it instead, believing it would shoot sparks