A man was critically injured and might be facing criminal charges after a mishap while handling commercial-grade fireworks over the Fourth of July weekend.
The incident took place on Sunday night in the unincorporated community of Cary, Illinois. At around 9:15 p.m. local time, the Lake County Sheriff’s Office and Cary Fire Protection District responded to a call reporting that a man had been injured by fireworks. According to Sheriff’s Deputy Chief Christopher Covelli, deputies arriving at the scene found a critically injured 58-year-old man who was drifting in and out of consciousness.
Paramedics at the scene transported the man to the nearby Northwestern Medicine Hospital in neighboring McHenry. From there, he was airlifted by a LifeNet medical helicopter to the Advocate Condell Medical Center, roughly 20 miles east in Libertyville. Annually, the estimated annual cost of fireworks-related injuries is $100 million, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
As of Monday, he remained in critical condition.
An investigation eventually found that the man, whose name has not been publically disclosed, had been attending a gathering at a residence on the 24400 block of Hickory Nut Grove Road in Cary. He had brought with him numerous commercial-grade fireworks, for which he did not possess the necessary permit to own and detonate.
Debris on the ground from large fireworks celebrating Independence Day. A man is facing possible charges after he bought commercial-grade fireworks that later exploded in his face.
SKatzenberger/Getty
At the gathering, he began to set off the fireworks and noticed that one was not going off as he had expected it to. He attempted to assess the issue by staring down into the tube containing the explosive, at which point it finally went off, shooting up at his face and exploding.
Covelli noted that several undetonated fireworks were found at the scene by responding officials. They were transferred to the Waukegan Bomb Squad for proper disposal.
Covelli also suggested that criminal charges in the case could be forthcoming, but did not elaborate on which charges they might be. Newsweek reached out to the Lake County Sheriff’s Office via email for comment.
Similar fireworks mishaps in the past have resulted in deaths, especially over the Fourth of July weekend when the colorful explosives are most prevalent. Last year, numerous deaths were reported from the misuse of fireworks during the holiday weekend all over the U.S., including a man in the Los Angeles area who was also gravely injured while handling illegal grade fireworks. He was pronounced dead after being transported to a hospital.
Another incident from last year involved 11-year-old Camrynn Ray McMichael of Mount Vernon, Indiana, who died after being critically injured by fireworks, which his parents told local reporters he had been playing with at the time.
“He’s every parent’s dream of a boy,” the boy’s mother, Kyrra McMichael, wrote in a social media post. “And because boys are boys, they play with fireworks [and] he is gone. In the blink of an eye. Literally.”
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