Strong candidate for a darwin Award.
Posted on 07/07/2015 12:56:25 PM PDT by Gamecock
Staples and his friends had been drinking and setting off fireworks Saturday night in a friend's backyard in rural Calais, Maine, when Staples died instantly of a fatal head injury, said Maine Department of Public Safety spokesman Stephen McCausland.
On Monday officials released new information about the incident.
"He placed the firework in the (mortar) tube upside down," McCausland said. "And rather than being projected upwards, it projected into his skull."
(Excerpt) Read more at orlandosentinel.com ...
Guy was a hot head, with an explosive temper.
“There was no Devon left when I got there,” his brother said....”
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Gee, where’d he go?
“And rather than being projected upwards, it projected into his skull.”
Either way he was a goner.
Even if he put the shell in correctly and put the base of the mortar on his head, there may have been enough recoil to kill or seriously hurt him.
Some lessons you just can’t learn from.
His mother is now saying we need more stringent fireworks laws. Perhaps a warning sticker saying, “if you are going to set this off from your head, please first make sure that the firing side is pointing to the sky rather than your head” would have saved this poor kid’s life or perhaps would save the life of some other kid who can’t resist the understandable urge to launch a firework from his head.
That’s the way I interpreted it also. It was an impact injury, not a percussion injury.
He was Gaston from Beauty and the Beast? My daughter would be so sad. She had a crush on him since she was 4 years old.
Oh I see, so instead of the mortar compressing his neck and spine and turning him into a quadriplegic, he absentmindedly had it upside down and killed him.
it probably sat on his head better with the opening end being on his head.....like a short term hat....
suicide by firework....lay on head....light fuse...get away quick.
I assume the bursting charge that entered his head...well it then went off too...splat....
not a fun end to the festivities.
They are called mortars for a reason.
Was “This side up” printed in English?
Actually, the open mortar tube probably fit on his head better. The closed end would probably tend to slide off.
There is video of this somewhere, I bet.
I have this Wiley Coyote type image of a round going through his skull, into his thoracic cavity, abdomen and exiting the other end.
hold muh beer and watch dis
Well of course he did.
The fuse is on the base of those things. If he had it set upright, he could have set his hair on fire trying to light the fuse. Sheesh. Ya gotta use your noodle for things like that.
Another article yesterday said his brother who witnessed it said his head was gone.
i don’t think I want to see it.
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