The young Captain Hook

[californiapyro]

i wonder if he lost his hearing... more importantly who throws damn HE into a river

[PersonGuyDude]

Also, who holds a HE in their hand and lights it? I felt bad for this kid at first, assuming it was a homemade salute(and he got the fuse wrong), or even that it was a chinese salute with a 1.5 second fuse. Now that we know how stupid he was, I feel sorry for his parents and his older, smarter, finger-less self....

[gregkdc1]

Wow that is quite horrible and possibly the worst thing I have seen in a long time.

 

I use to work with a kid, he has since past away, that lost his hand in almost the same way. He was in college getting ready to go to chiropractic school when he bought some roman candles during a trip to Tijuana. When he got back home with his friends he lit one and while holding it in his hand he said it blew up just like a stick of dynamite. He showed me his x-rays they took at the ER and the damage was extensive, basically half of his wrist was gone and all of the metacarpal bones where broke in half with nothing left of his hand but shredded meat. He later passed away in a drowning accident when they think his hook may have got caught on a submerged log.

 

 

[pdfbq]

200 grams of ANNM goes of in your hand you're dead.

[pyrogeorge]

Wow that is quite horrible and possibly the worst thing I have seen in a long time.

 

I use to work with a kid, he has since past away, that lost his hand in almost the same way. He was in college getting ready to go to chiropractic school when he bought some roman candles during a trip to Tijuana. When he got back home with his friends he lit one and while holding it in his hand he said it blew up just like a stick of dynamite. He showed me his x-rays they took at the ER and the damage was extensive, basically half of his wrist was gone and all of the metacarpal bones where broke in half with nothing left of his hand but shredded meat. He later passed away in a drowning accident when they think his hook may have got caught on a submerged log.

How can a roman candle do this??

[NightHawkInLight]

How can a roman candle do this??

 

There are a number of ways it can happen. A star could jam, tube could get pinched, or the delay between stars could be poorly packed or disturbed from handling causing them all to fire at once. A stick of dynamite is a poor comparison, since that is in a whole 'nother league from BP, but they can explode violently enough to certainly cause some damage. The tubes are rolled very thick because they are meant to handle several shots without rupturing, but that also allows very high pressures to build before an explosion if something goes wrong.

[nater]

How can a roman candle do this??

 

As Nighthawkinlight said, there are a number of ways roman candles blow up. It is not uncommon for them to fail either. If it was a salute candle, I could easily imagine one taking a hand off if you were holding it.

[pyrogeorge]

There are a number of ways it can happen. A star could jam, tube could get pinched, or the delay between stars could be poorly packed or disturbed from handling causing them all to fire at once. A stick of dynamite is a poor comparison, since that is in a whole 'nother league from BP, but they can explode violently enough to certainly cause some damage. The tubes are rolled very thick because they are meant to handle several shots without rupturing, but that also allows very high pressures to build before an explosion if something goes wrong.

Yes i understand the way that cause explosion,but some stars and BP can cause so much damage?

[NightHawkInLight]

Yes i understand the way that cause explosion,but some stars and BP can cause so much damage?

When heavily contained such is the case in a candle tube, yes. Especially if there are salute stars as Nater mentioned.

[gregkdc1]

How can a roman candle do this??

 

After he told me this I wondered the same thing. Keep in mind it was a large, as he called it, black market roman candle from Tijuana so we can only guess what it's composition was, how it was made or what kind of condition the piece was in. I thought that maybe they used chlorates to cut costs or a hot perchlorate mix for the stars and/or lift charge, and it went off like a salute? Also if it had been crushed at some point this can damage a normal pyro device and change it into a makeshift salute.

 

The description "like dynamite" was the way he described the explosion to me so I simply took his word for it, after loosing a hand I didn't think he would have cared about the technicalities.

 

About the other kid using fuse to light his ANNM charge that is just crazy. I learned a long time ago that even the best cannon fuse can't be trusted. One time in shop class we made model rockets and the teacher didn't supply any igniters but simply a 5-6" piece of cannon fuse, you know the green water proof kind they sale at gun stores. Anyway while launching a rocket a classmates rocket took off instantly because the fuse was bad. When the rocket took off his hand was under the exhaust and he received 3rd degree burns over most of his palm. It was amazing to see how much damage a little C6-5 could do, that was the first and only time I have ever seen that kind of fuse do that but I have never trusted it ever since.

 

 

[countryboy7978]

I have never seen good visco fuse burn faster than it should in all my years of lighting fireworks however I have seen the nitrocellulose coating burn all the way down the fuse. If the casing is not sealed the fire could get in and set of the item before the powder train even catches fire. Setting off open containers of composition can also result in a spark or burning slag falling from the fuse and prematurely setting of the composition. Also with the various speeds of fuse that are being made you have to be VERY careful that you have not used the wrong speed. 2" of regular American visco will typically take 5 to 6 seconds to burn but the same length of fast visco would burn in less than 1/2 second. By the time you realize the fuse is lit and your eyes tells your brain to tell your hand to release the device it's too late.

 

I suspect the fuse that was used in the above accident was homemade by someone who didn't understand the burning characteristics of fuse. The wrong casing essentially makes quick match. I've seen many times inexperienced people not removing the safety cap on shells and burning through the cap with a torch/flare/lighter.....BAM! instant lift. Thank God every time they have not had any body parts over the tube.

[Potassiumchlorate]

It comes to mind that I have only made two yellow Bengal fires in my life and that both have kind of exploded.

 

The first one was:

 

Potassium chlorate 70

Cryolite 15

Shellac 15

 

and the second one:

 

Potassium perchlorate 70

Cryolite 15

Red gum 15

 

Both of these burn fiercefully, of course, almost too fast for Bengal fires, but why did they explode? I have made barium chlorate Bengals, that never exploded.

[NightHawkInLight]

Any fuse if mishandled can burn straight through as fast as quickmatch. Most pyro's would instantly notice a piece of visco was no good if it was soft and floppy with the powder core severely disturbed, but someone less experienced or lighting fireworks in the dark may not notice. This can often happen if kids are given fireworks without proper safety instruction. If they're anything like I was at 9-12, they'll want to play with the fireworks in their hands until it's time to light. In doing so they can bend and pinch the fuse enough to open up gaps in the grain causing the fuse to more or less CATO just like a cracked rocket grain would.

[50AE]

Awwww, this is a brutal, heavy for the stomach video.

 

Awww... Awww...

 

Aww....

 

I don't know what to say, but this.. definitely is a teaching video for some stuff for "not do do"

 

Good find. I will post it to my forum.

 

Pardon me, I know it's not the right reaction, but the title "Captain Hook" made me laugh

Edited April 18, 2012 by 50AE

[dagabu]

Didn't watch the video, saw enough of this kind of thing in '91, thank you.

 

-dag

[majesticfg]

Why cant I download the PDF files? I wanna see his hand

[Mumbles]

You should be able to now.

 

http://www.amateurpyro.com/forums/topic/2209-faq/

[majesticfg]

Damnnn.... Just damnn

[majesticfg]

Is that really his hand?? I aint not going to touch firework anymore.. lol

[MondoMage]

Is that really his hand?? I aint not going to touch firework anymore.. lol

 

I somehow managed to miss the PDF the first time around, but now that I've had a chance to look.... damn.

 

I don't really consider this to be the same as a "firework" injury, but with all the idiots out there wanting to know how to make salutes and such, something like this should be required reading so that maybe - just maybe - they'll have a bit more respect for the stuff.

[optimus]

As a HE, this injury isn't fireworks related. There is a 'consequences' page which shows relevant fireworks-related injury here:

 

http://web.archive.org/web/20090524030440/http://come.to/pfp

[xBangergoosEx]

Didn't watch the video, saw enough of this kind of thing in '91, thank you.

 

-dag

 

If you dont mind me asking, are you referring to the Gulf War?

[dagabu]

If you dont mind me asking, are you referring to the Gulf War?

 

Yup Storm and Shield, it was really fast, no time to get bored, not like the mess we are now pulling out of now.

 

-dag

[Ferret]

I wish I wouldn't have watched that...

[warywolfen]

My neighbors right hand consists of a palm, minus fingers & only a partial thumb.

I asked him "combat injury"?

 

Reply: drunken party & throwing M-80's.

He lit & threw several, he was distracted somehow & the last one he lit went off in his hand.

 

 

 

Have you ever seen someone with REALLY bad arthritis, how their hands are lumpy and the fingers all twisted? I had a friend in the 1980s whose hands were like that. But it wasn't arthritis. He had been a marine in Vietnam. His specialty was demolition. One day, he got careless with a blasting cap... The doctors put his hands back together, as best as they could.