Man dies while shooting firework off top of his head

[KamaAina]

Not The Onion!

http://www.cbs6albany.com/news/features/top-story/stories/man-dies-while-shooting-off-firework-top-his-head-26935.shtml

Maine State Police say a man celebrating the Fourth of July died when he tried to launch a firework off the top of his head.

Stephen McCausland, a spokesman for the Maine Department of Public Safety, says 22-year-old Devon Staples of Calais had been setting off fireworks with friends on Saturday night in the backyard of a friend's home.

He says Staples placed a fireworks mortar tube on his head and set it off, injuring his head. He died instantly.

Police say the friends had been drinking.

You think?

And the Darwin goes to...

[Special Prosciuto]

1. Police say the friends had been drinking

and most likely shooting video for youtube. Plenty of idiocy there. His "friends" must have witnessed a gruesome sight.

But someone did a fireworks ladder into the sky. I believe this was in China, with no fatalities.

[NewJeffCT]

5. Let me guess - his last words were

"Hold my beer!"

[Xipe Totec]

2. Another failure of science education in the United States

Newtonian mechanics. 3rd law of motion.

For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction.

[demmiblue]

3. I'm sure most of us made dumb mistakes when we were young.

I feel for his family and friends. I can't even imagine the constant replaying of the event in the minds of those who witnessed it.

I wonder who the asshole award goes to?

[seveneyes]

4. When hope is the only help

[hunter]

6. How hard would you have to hit something the size of that fireworks shell with a baseball bat...

... to make it go up that high in the sky?

Would you want someone to hit you just as hard on the head with a baseball bat?

This is a sad story, but so are all the stories of people who kill and maim themselves and others with automobiles because they have no practical understanding of physics.

I once came upon an accident, airbags deployed, and one of the drivers, a young man, was stomping around outside his car yelling "FUCK, FUCK, FUCK!!! THAT HURT!!!"

Perhaps he'd imagined seatbelts would be gentle and airbags pillowly soft???

When I was his age an accident like that might have killed and maimed people. Cars were not so safe then.

[Coventina]

7. Yep. The one serious auto accident I was in, my worst injuries were from my seatbelts.

And thank God/dess for them!
Because without them I probably would have been SERIOUSLY injured or killed.

[MissMillie]

8. Darwin award anyone?

Seriously....