Experience: A firework exploded my groin
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A lady grabbed my hand and began praying. That was the moment I thought I might be dying. I grew up in Hampshire, in the UK, in the 1980s, and still remember the terrifying fireworks safety videos from my childhood. They made dire warnings of death and disaster if you picked up a dropped sparkler or went back to a lit firework. Every Guy Fawkes Night, Dad made sure we watched the action from inside the house.
Here in Texas, things are different. I moved to the US in 2007, and each year, as the Fourth of July approached, containers would appear by the road, selling enormous fireworks to anyone, no questions asked. My American wife, Megan, was always safety-conscious. Our son was allowed a sparkler if he was lucky. But for our friends, you couldn’t celebrate Independence Day without huge explosions. We knew that the Fourth of July party we were invited to in 2022, on a friend’s two acres of land, would have fireworks.
It was casual, so I wore a shirt, shorts and a belt that Megan hated. It had a metal buckle that jangled. She found it incredibly annoying. At the party, we ate and drank as the kids ran around, and as it got dark, we pulled up some chairs outside. There were sparklers and Roman candles were lit.
Our son was playing on the edge of the property, so Megan and I moved our chairs to be closer to him. About 60ft in front of us was a wooden pallet, where two big fireworks were being lit. Then something went wrong. Instead of shooting into the sky, the first firework flew towards the house and exploded on the porch. Then, before I could get up from my chair, I saw the second one flying directly at me.
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