4th of July Injuries

[Taera]

So now that the holiday is over, and most everyone has played with thier explosives, lets talk about all the dumb shit you've done or seen other people do. I'll start:

Last night about 11 PM we were shooting off fireworks in my friends gravel pit. Of course we were doing them the wrong way just cause it was fun. I get the idea to take one of those foot tall mortar cannons(the things you drop the round balls in with the long fuses that you drop in, light and they shoot out making big pretty explosions), light a mortar, and hold it over my head to surprise everyone when it explodes right over us. Well when it shot out, i felt something hit the top of my head. I thought it was just the downward force of the shot or something. When I looked up though, i was still holding the plastic bottom, but the tube was gone. Then I feel blood start running down my face. Good thing i had a few beers, cause i didnt really feel much pain.

End result: inch and a half crecent gash on the top of my head that resulted in 6 staples.

[sephir]

This was on Canada day last year. At my cottage my neighbor bought a large number of fireworks expecting to fire them off on the beach. He put about 3-4 Roman Candles in the sand right beside eachother and lit them. Unfortunately he forgot to secure one of them deep enough in the sand so the force of the first blast made the firework come loose form the sand.
I was on my balcony when I heard the screams, but essentially the firework fell over and pointed right at his cottage and his family and shot 3 shots. After that it had spun around and fired the remaining shots along the water.

It was pretty funny because his wife gave him hell for a good hour or so and everyone along the beach could hear it.

[SephYuyX]

Nothing this year.
Few close calls though.

Those mortar shots are the best for you $, 12 shots for 25$ beating the standard 1 shot tubes.

Well with those I like to light off 2, 3, 4 at a time by twisting the wicks together, lighting the tip, and then they fall into place when the wick has been lit. Well, 3 went off at about the same time, but the 4th took forever, and in that gap, the force of the other 3 knocked over the other and pointed directly at the fire pit were people were sitting. It fires, speeds off on the ground after them, but luckily there was a corn hole set blocking the path and the morter stopped there and blew up lol.

Then various cheap bottle rockets being toss and flewn everywhere, a few went under the tent were people were stitting, etc, dinky little things that cant really hurt.

I singed the hair off of my right arm after lighting 50 sparklers at once, whoops.

[Sqwunk]

One of our roman candles tipped itself over from the force, so instead of shooting over the lake, it shot into the woods and at the neighbors house

[Tekki]

Had a bottle rocket head in my direction last night. Now I know it feels to have a RPG come at you from the Taliban

[Araelus]

Neighbors set their lawn on fire. Now I know what it was like in Pompeii on August 25, 79 A.D.

[Groovebox]

Probably my favorite 4th of July story is from when I was in High School... my friends and I bought some roman candles and we hopped in an old astrovan (the one with the sliding side door)... so we slide open the door to shoot the roman candles out the side... all of a sudden my friend who was driving stopped and right as we lit the roman candle the door slid shut, and the roman candle started going off in the van. Everyone just panicked and covered their heads as the flaming balls burned holes in the seats... it was actually pretty fucking hilarious now that I think about it lol.

[Furtwangler]

When i was at a campout a few weeks ago we put 4 bottle rockets on a marshmallow and set the fuses together, it went up fine for about 1 second then made a 90 degree turn right under someones seat. good thing they cant really hurt anything.

[BIGSTIC]

The only casualty last night was my pocket book

Had 6 homeowners and alot of friends(about 150 people) in the culdesac all lighting fireworks. Took about 1.5 hours of constant lighting to set them all off. Rough estimate was about $8k was blown up last night. But we all love the 4th and no injuries to be reported. Did have one mortar that didnt launch and blew up on the ground but with that many people safety was pretty high on the priority list.

[Qalbert]

causality

[Araelus]

He clearly means the fireworks caused his pocketbook to die.


(Eight thousand dollars of pyrotechnics sounds really amazing, did you folks have any professional electronic timed displays set up? Or is Montana home to some of those wholesale firework retailers and you bought the entire store?)

[Shenrien]

I singed the hair off of my right arm after lighting 50 sparklers at once, whoops.

isnt it amazing what happens when we're given sparklers? :3 luckly its only once a year lol I do this too ; ; sept I got a 2nd degree burn from it.

[BerenTebogo]

Went to light a longer-fused firecracker and set it off right behind a friends chair.

Shit burned wicked fast tossed it in front of me and it blew up right in front of me in mid-air. Singed eyebrows is all!

[Senoska]

We play a lot of volleyball on the 4th and live right on the lake and the ball tends to go in the direction of the lake. A guy we were playing with went running after the ball which had rolled onto the dock. At the end of the dock there was an unused pole sticking up. He slid to stop the ball and the pipe stuck in his side. Long story short he ended up in the hospital and won two free concert tickets for "the worst 4th of July injury" on a local radio station.

Also, we were shooting the BIG fucking mortars off. the type that cities use. We shot off a few of them and not thinking the PVC pipe we were using expanded because of the heat. One of the mortars got stuck and exploded on the ground. Shockingly no one got hurt but we found PVC pipe about 1.5 blocks away this morning from when it exploded.

[BIGSTIC]

He clearly means the fireworks caused his pocketbook to die.


(Eight thousand dollars of pyrotechnics sounds really amazing, did you folks have any professional electronic timed displays set up? Or is Montana home to some of those wholesale firework retailers and you bought the entire store?)

There is a wholesale stand about every half mile once you get outside city limits. And one of my neighbors runs about 20 of them. We all chipped him some cash and he showed up yesterday with a 20' semi container plum full. There were 5 of us in charge of lighting the big ones and had a area set aside for the kids to light off the little ones. My 2yo boy was having a blast lighting bottle rockets(ok he put them in the bottle and helped me hold the punk). None were set off electronically but at one point we were putting the city's fireworks show to shame. We were about 2 miles from where they light theirs off. Best part was when the sheriff rolled up in his truck and let his family out to enjoy the show. Its a $500 fine for lighting them inside the city limits and we are about 500' outside the city limit sign.

[guartz]

Lack of Darwin in here.

somebody fix this.

[Gregorio]

Dropped my phone in my beer when I was hammered. I consider it a casualty.

[Kadrian]

I did not suffer any injuries other than some singed hair. A friend of mine did not make it out so lucky.

We had some artillery tubes screwed down to a piece of plywood and were loading them and lighting them off, 10-15 at a time. We had a pile of artillery shells next to the tubes for quick reloading. Stay with me here, it sounded like a good idea at the time...

A spark caught the pile and about 12-13 artillery shells went off in his face. I was standing about 5ft away and turned my back when I saw an explosion on the ground. He now has red blisters and 1st degree burns from his fingertips up to his elbow and it missing some hair as well. We put on a hell of a show though!

[Vandole]

my dad was being a bitch cause i was lighting shit and throwing it(i'm almost 19.)

so i stopped popping till he got drunk enough to apologize, then proceeded to have fun with fire.

just normal shit, lighting bottle rockets then letting them go off in my hand, timing explosions on water buster's so they blow in the air...

and you know those things you pull and they pop? i let my mom pull one while i was holding the string with my teeth, letting it blow up in my face. Didn't hurt. it didn't even remind me of getting hit in the face with a volleyball.

singed the majority of my left arm's hair last night. i'm quite the hairy guy too.

[Arrmani]

Some of these make mine not seem like a big deal. I was lighting bottle rockets from a chair, and I was making a pile of sticks that either the rockets went up without or just were duds. At some point my GFs brother put a pile for me to light there, but I thought I was done, so I threw them all in the bonfire to burn the sticks. Nobody was hurt but there were some close explosions.