Ignoring evidence of a stress fracture and allowing those kids to stuff black powder into that cannon is not merely stupid, it's *criminally negligent*, IMO. Here is a pic of the cannon, before it turned into a fragmentation grenade:
Posted on 12/20/2006 12:53:53 PM PST by Kaslin
Accident in football town elicited threats, not get-well wishes
SNOHOMISH -- The cannon shot that ripped into Brett Karch's leg, causing a gaping combat-style wound, has also torn a hole in his hometown community of Snohomish.
Karch, whose leg was nearly amputated and who faces more than a year of physical rehabilitation with an uncertain outcome, has been the target of physical threats because of fears his injury will jeopardize the community's tradition of firing the ceremonial cannon before each high school football game and after touchdowns.
For more than 30 years, the blast of the cherry-red cannon has ignited the roars of fans whenever the home team scored in this football-proud town. With its tree-lined streets, gingerbread-trimmed Victorian houses and hills crested with historic churches, the town is devoted to its traditions, including its beloved cannon, which students in the school's metal shop built after a previous cannon gave out in the mid-1980s.
Football and the cannon were entwined, like popcorn at the movies. And football and Snohomish were even more so.
"Football is a huge part of the community," said Paula McVey, mother of a Snohomish student. "When there's a game on, you can hear it going from anywhere in town."
Shooting off the cannon was the town's salute to the game that launched many notable football careers and entertained generations.
But the shot that nearly took off Brett Karch's leg now leaves the fate of that tradition in the air, and that has upset some in the community.
According to Karch's medical records, security guards notified police after Karch received disturbing phone calls and visits from parents and students, some of whom threatened to "break his other leg" or worse, if he didn't keep quiet about the accident. Hospital staff had to move him to a secure room where they monitored visitors.
Callers and visitors told Karch they would "make sure his other leg got blown off," and that "there would be retaliation" if the family cooperated in an investigation that could end the cannon tradition, said Mary Bissel, Karch's mother. "That's when I kind of got a little upset," Karch said.
The threats also included mention the family would be "banned from the town," Bissell said. She's been warned not to talk to a lawyer, or reporters.
The allegations of threats, as well as the cause of the accident, remain under investigation. Hospital security reported the threats to the Everett Police Department, but police, who came to the hospital to interview Karch and his mother, won't release the incident report, citing the open investigation into the cause of the accident.
Tradition all but gone
The tradition of firing a cannon at football games has all but disappeared in most school districts, which makes this one that much more endearing to its community.
"This one was grandfathered in," said retired Marine Corps. Col. John Mack, who heads the Marine Corps Junior Reserve Officer Training unit at Snohomish High School and is in charge of the squad that fires the cannon. "We're the only school allowed to do it."
Being on the cannon-firing squad was a source of pride for Karch, who joined the ROTC unit last year to help him toward his longtime goal of becoming a Marine. Karch, a lanky, personable 16-year-old, had hoped to do Special Forces reconnaissance work one day.
"Brett wanted to serve his country," said Bissel. "Now we're just hoping he will be able to use his leg. I never imagined this would happen on a football field."
On Oct. 6 -- the night of the Snohomish Panthers big homecoming game against rival Everett High School -- Karch prepared as usual for the firing of the cannon.
He helped roll the coffee table-sized artillery piece to the field where he and two other cadets packed the barrel with about 5 ounces of gunpowder.
With 10 seconds to go before the game, Cadet Alex Brown, 18, the officer in charge of the firing team, began the countdown.
The other cadets stood at attention except Karch, who leaned in, finger at the ready.
"Fire," Brown commanded. Karch pulled the trigger.
The boom, which normally rattled the bleachers, was louder than usual, witnesses said.
The concussion temporarily deafened Brown, who couldn't see through the smoke for several seconds. When the smoke cleared, he saw Karch lying on the ground clutching his left leg.
"I almost thought he was joking, and I going to yell at him, 'It's not funny,' " said Brown. Then he heard Karch's screams.
The cannon was blown apart. Pieces of it landed 30 feet away, some even touching down in the end zone.
"My leg went flying, and I fell on my right side," said Karch. "Kids were staggering around. I looked at my leg and felt it burning."
"Did it blow my leg off, is my leg still attached?" he recalled asking the closest cadet to him. But the deafened student couldn't hear him.
Within seconds, medics and senior officers sprinted to his side. The team of emergency medical technicians standing by in the event of a football injury rushed Karch into a waiting ambulance.
The priority on the playing field, however, was the game, which didn't stop as Karch was carried off the sidelines to an ambulance, witnesses said.
Not much can stop football in this town, where the pride runs deep. The two-time state champions have generated many notable players and coaches over the years. Dick Armstrong was known as the "winningest coach in Washington state high school football history" by the time he retired in 1994. In his 32 seasons as head coach at Snohomish, Armstrong, who died in 1999, racked up 243 wins and won or shared 16 league titles, including 13 in a row.
As play continued, Karch was taken to Providence Everett's Colby Campus, where doctors initially told his stunned mother they weren't sure they could save his leg. Karch has since undergone three surgeries to implant a titanium rod the length of his shin to replace the decimated bone and to graft skin over the shredded tissue. In February, doctors plan to graft bone from his hip into his leg to help it heal.
"My leg was in so many pieces, it was like a jigsaw puzzle," said Karch.
"If this had happened to a football player, you can be sure he would have been airlifted to Harborview," said one parent of a ROTC member, who asked not to be named for fear of reprisals.
Brown, too, was shocked and later angered by the apparent lack of concern for the seriousness of Karch's injury.
Rumors circulated almost immediately among students that Karch must have packed the cannon incorrectly, and some of the cards and comments have suggested that he deserved what happened to him.
Karch said he didn't do anything different that night, a view shared by his ROTC leader Mack, the retired Marine Corps colonel, who said the team follows military protocols for loading and firing the cannon.
Mack had the cannon X-rayed earlier this year. Fred Langer, an attorney representing the family, said those results showed a stress fracture in the metal, although it's not clear yet whether that had any bearing on the explosion.
No decision has been made yet about whether to acquire a new cannon to ensure the tradition continues, said Snohomish High School Principal Diana Plumis.
"We're certainly not getting that one back," she said. "It was obliterated."
No friends at party
That's what seems to worry many of those who have contacted Karch, who has gotten cards indicating the tradition of the cannon is too important to lose.
"Football wouldn't be the same without the big boom at kickoff," wrote one student in a get-well card.
The reaction of some community members has taken the family and its supporters aback.
"Snohomish is usually a pretty tight community," Brown said. "Usually when something like this happens, groups come together. But that didn't happen this time."
Since his discharge from the hospital on Oct. 23, Karch has had only three visitors -- two of them Mack and Brown. And despite invitations to school friends, not a single person other than family attended his 16th birthday celebration in November, Bissell said.
Bissel suspects some of the reaction may be because she retained a lawyer to help her understand legal forms the school district asked her to sign after the accident. She has not filed any legal claims against the school or the district. According to Langer, the school district has been cooperative and has said it plans to establish a fund to pay for Karch's medical expenses.
What Bissel wants for her son, though, is the emotional support of the community they've lived in for a decade.
On a recent school day afternoon, Karch, who has not been able to attend regular classes since the accident, rode past his old school in a cabulance on his way to an Everett clinic for a weekly changing of the thick dressings that wrap his wounds. Kids had spilled out of the school, and he tried to wave to Brown, who drove by.
Karch said later he wondered whether the kids milling around even realized that he was in the ambulance van going by.
The persistent hostility, and loss of friendships, make him sad, but he's trying not to dwell on it.
He's working hard during weekly physical and occupational therapy sessions, hoping to regain enough function to qualify for the military.
McVey has tried rallying support for Karch's family by raising money for dinners. Her initial attempts raised $200, nearly all of it coming from schools other than Karch's own.
The lack of response still puzzles her.
"You have a kid here who's lost part of his leg, who may always have a rod in it," she said. "Where's the compassion? How would these guys feel if it were their son? Would the cannon really matter?"
This is one village that's not missing any idiots.
Yea... BUT if this kid enlists this will be good training for getting wounded and having the country spit on you.
I get to the end of this and think there has to be more to the story than this. People really care more about a stupid cannon than a kid who nearly lost his leg?
I'm just having a hard time believing it. "Football wouldn't be the same without the big boom at kickoff." Give me a break. I've been to games that had cannons and they were kind of cool, but I've been to plenty of games without them and the thought didn't even cross my mind that there was no cannon.
(I'm sure the ones I did see were NOT made by some knuckleheads in the schools metal shop.)
The family should get on with it and sue the school. What's the worst that could happen - everyone could hate them? It sounds like they already have that, and with the losers in that town, it's probably no great loss. (At least now they know who their friends aren't.)
It looks like they are certain he did something wrong, on purpose, and that was why the cannon blew up. And now I'm guessing his family is saying they should stop the cannon.
That would be the first step to a lawsuit. Once you get the school to agree that the cannon IS a bad idea and shouldn't be used, you sue saying the cannon WAS a bad idea and they should have known better.
I think that's why people are upset with them. I'm just guessing, because there aren't enough facts to know the truth.
It is surprising that the cannon exploded if it was only packed as they say and wasn't sealed in any way. Even IF it had a hairline fracture.
Mythbusters used a much larger charge to blow up their wooden cannon.
Small town losers and hicks. Punks. Thugs. Jerks. They and their football team can rot in Hell for all I care.
Usually I am against most lawsuits over accidents. In this case, though, he and his family should sue that school out of existance. Or at least break their bank account so they never play another oh-so-precious football game again.
(And this from a die-hard OSU Buckeyes fan. Frankly, such low class people spit on everything good sportsmanship and teams stand for with their abject stupidity and boorishness.)
Ignoring evidence of a stress fracture and allowing those kids to stuff black powder into that cannon is not merely stupid, it's *criminally negligent*, IMO. Here is a pic of the cannon, before it turned into a fragmentation grenade:
There are some people who have truly sick, warped priorities. Caring more about a stupid cannon than a boy's leg-I honestly thought thinking football "stars" had the right to commit assault on underage girls was the sickest thing sports obsession had ever led to, but I was proven wrong today.
When Mythbusters used 6 oz of powder (remember these guys were using 5 oz), it shot a tennis ball, and a solid granite ball, without any damage at all to their tree cannon, or apparently to the tennis ball.
When they put 5 POUNDS of explosives in the cannon and SEALED it, they completely destroyed their cannon.
What a sh_tty town!
Sounds like something the people in Massilon, Ohio, would do.
Bump for Later!
"Since his discharge from the hospital on Oct. 23, Karch has had only three visitors -- two of them Mack and Brown."
I'd like to at least think that the third visitor was some representative from the school(like the principal) expressing all kinds of anguish over this poor boy's plight, both physical and emotional. Somehow though, I doubt that's the case.
Read the OP and comments. NDT revealed a flaw. Who gives a snit for your personal anecdotes, two even are not 'data'.
Either we are equal or we are not. Good people ought to be armed where they will, with wits and guns. Merry Christmas
Somebody's half a bubble off plumb.
Wonder if they teach them how to make zip guns in case they get a job in the prison laundry?
True, apparently most of the town should not be allowed anywhere close to firearms not to mention cannons.
However, the school cannon that blew up was made in the school's metal shop in the 1980's, therefore being at least 17 years old up to 26, and then therefore possibly fired thousands of times, while the natural acts of corrosion and accumulative use took its toll. Nothing against Mythbusters, but they didn't fire the thing for years, either. Apples and oranges.
Bunch of idiots in this town. High school football is probably so popular because the city's residents don't know that college exists.
I think the stress fracture says it all. They should have immediately stopped using the cannon after that was discovered.
"Who gives a snit for your personal anecdotes..." Conversly, who gives a $hit for your attitude? Personal knowledge, along with published articles, is what makes FR what it is. Your pissant attitude does not fit in well.
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