A man in the U.S died after he took his Fourth of July celebrations too far and accidentally set off a fireworks mortar from the top of his head.
Devon Staples, who played Disney World character, ‘Gaston’, was partying with his friends in Calais, Maine over the holiday weekend when he decided to put a reloadable mortar tube on his head and set it off. He died instantly.
Stephen McCausland, spokesman for the Maine Department of Public Safety, told the Bangor Daily News that 22-year-old Mr Staples had been drinking alcohol and that the explosion immediately caused a fatal head injury.
He said:
When he suggested he was going to do this, his friends gathered around him and they thought they had convinced him not to do it.
However, speaking to the New York Daily News, the victim’s brother Cody Staples refuted multiple reports.
He added:
It was a freak accident. Devon was not the kind of person who would do something stupid. He was the kind of person who would pretend to do something stupid to make people laugh.
He told the New York Daily Times that it was a freak event and that Devon had been holding a lighter, which made it go off “by accident.”
The incident marks the first reported death in a fireworks accident in Maine since their legalisation in 2012 and, hopefully, the last!
He will be remembered for putting smiles on the faces of many adults and children. RIP.
