# First Maine fireworks death - unbelieveable! **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [July 5, 2015, 3:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/first-maine-fireworks-death-unbelieveable/724316 "2015-07-05T15:47:05Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![eschereal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eschereal/32/18939_2.png) [@eschereal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eschereal)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2015, 3:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/first-maine-fireworks-death-unbelieveable/724316/41 "2015-07-06T03:32:56Z")
Which is to say, “_Don’t. Just, don’t._” ---
**Author:** ![Wile\_E](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/c37758/32.png) [@Wile\_E](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wile_E)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2015, 4:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/first-maine-fireworks-death-unbelieveable/724316/42 "2015-07-06T04:03:59Z")
> [@Muffin](#): > > I’m for writing it up as the last casualty of the war of 1812-1813. Back then, the Canadians gave a lot of gunpowder to the Americans in Calais so that the Americans could thoroughly enjoy shooting of fireworks on their 4th of July. We knew that sooner or later, the Americans would blow themselves up. It just took longer than we thought. You know there’s a few more of us here and we’re not all that colossally stupid. You may be waiting a bit longer. ---
**Author:** ![Projammer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/projammer/32/559_2.png) [@Projammer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Projammer)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2015, 4:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/first-maine-fireworks-death-unbelieveable/724316/43 "2015-07-06T04:57:40Z")
I’m just imagining someone giving the eulogy while trying to keep a straight face. ---
**Author:** ![Senegoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/senegoid/32/6606_2.png) [@Senegoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Senegoid)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2015, 7:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/first-maine-fireworks-death-unbelieveable/724316/44 "2015-07-06T07:14:10Z")
Related thread, by the way: [Should the Sale of Fireworks be Banned (except to Trained Professionals)](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=761455), over in GD, where the debate is largely informed by Mr. Fireheadworks unfortunate Darwinian experience. ---
**Author:** ![Mean\_Mr.Mustard](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mean_mr.mustard/32/3865_2.png) [@Mean\_Mr.Mustard](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mean_Mr.Mustard)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2015, 10:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/first-maine-fireworks-death-unbelieveable/724316/45 "2015-07-06T10:31:04Z")
> [@Mahaloth](#): > > Darwin Award candidate. He needs that like he needs a hole in his head. mmm ---
**Author:** ![aceplace57](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aceplace57/32/3500_2.png) [@aceplace57](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aceplace57)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2015, 10:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/first-maine-fireworks-death-unbelieveable/724316/46 "2015-07-06T10:42:22Z")
> [@Vaevictis](#): > > So how thick of a piece of wood placed between the head and the mortar would have protected him? I don’t think padding would help. as I understand it, the kick back force from the mortar was like a hammer blow to the head. A piece of wood might make it worse because it would strike your head. ---
**Author:** ![Your\_Great\_Darsh\_Face](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/ac8455/32.png) [@Your\_Great\_Darsh\_Face](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Your_Great_Darsh_Face)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2015, 10:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/first-maine-fireworks-death-unbelieveable/724316/47 "2015-07-06T10:42:45Z")
You’re all blowing pretty hard about this, but I can’t help feeling there’s mortar this than meets the eye. ---
**Author:** ![Jackmannii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackmannii/32/311_2.png) [@Jackmannii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackmannii)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2015, 12:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/first-maine-fireworks-death-unbelieveable/724316/48 "2015-07-06T12:34:43Z")
> [@Rick\_Kitchen](#): > > Jason Pierre-Paul, DE for the New York Giants, blew his hand up with fireworks yesterday. I wonder how that will impact his career. “Blew his hand up” seems to have been downgraded to “suffered burns on his hand from which he should recover”. ---
**Author:** ![Machine\_Elf](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/82dd89/32.png) [@Machine\_Elf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Machine_Elf)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2015, 1:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/first-maine-fireworks-death-unbelieveable/724316/49 "2015-07-06T13:15:53Z")
> [@Vaevictis](#): > > So how thick of a piece of wood placed between the head and the mortar would have protected him? That’s like asking how thick a piece of wood should be placed on your head before someone hits it with a sledgehammer. as **Silenus** explains, you’d want a piece of wood with enough mass to absorb most of the impulse from the blast. ---
**Author:** ![DCnDC](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dcndc/32/2842_2.png) [@DCnDC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DCnDC)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2015, 1:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/first-maine-fireworks-death-unbelieveable/724316/50 "2015-07-06T13:49:27Z")
There’s also [this genius from Michigan](http://us.tomonews.net/video.php?video_id=245980863676416), _exactly_ the same thing, from a week earlier. With CG re-enactment! ---
**Author:** ![Hypno-Toad](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/b2d939/32.png) [@Hypno-Toad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hypno-Toad)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2015, 2:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/first-maine-fireworks-death-unbelieveable/724316/51 "2015-07-06T14:43:00Z")
> [@Amateur\_Barbarian](#): > > So what step was that? The last one. ---
**Author:** ![lieu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/c2a13f/32.png) [@lieu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lieu)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2015, 2:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/first-maine-fireworks-death-unbelieveable/724316/52 "2015-07-06T14:54:42Z")
_Temper Fire_ ---
**Author:** ![Your\_Great\_Darsh\_Face](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/ac8455/32.png) [@Your\_Great\_Darsh\_Face](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Your_Great_Darsh_Face)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2015, 2:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/first-maine-fireworks-death-unbelieveable/724316/53 "2015-07-06T14:56:35Z")
> [@Colibri](#): > > There’s this thing known as Newton’s Third Law of Motion (For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction). He might as well have just aimed the mortar directly at the top of his head. Not quite. Momentum is conserved, kinetic energy isn’t. It’s the difference between the kick of a rifle butt against your shoulder, or the bullet impact. Butt hurt, but bullet kill. Even so, I wouldn’t use my cranium to absorb the recoil of even quite a light artillery piece. :smack: ---
**Author:** ![Hampshire](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hampshire/32/4887_2.png) [@Hampshire](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hampshire)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2015, 3:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/first-maine-fireworks-death-unbelieveable/724316/54 "2015-07-06T15:04:29Z")
Hate to admit it but I did something almost as stupid many many years ago (96’?). It was a New Year’s Eve party and of course much drinking involved. I decided to hold the mortar tube and shoot it like a roman candle. Bad idea. The explosion blew the bottom of the tube out but still managed to get the mortar away from me. However those hot gases blowing out the bottom was enough to singe my arm hairs off and give me a sunburn like burn over the arm. Reading about these deaths now make me feel damn lucky I wasn’t another dead idiot. ---
**Author:** ![Peter\_Morris](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/peter_morris/32/359_2.png) [@Peter\_Morris](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peter_Morris)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2015, 3:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/first-maine-fireworks-death-unbelieveable/724316/55 "2015-07-06T15:41:58Z")
> [@Amateur\_Barbarian](#): > > I’d actually be interested in the cause of death here. Did he expect to launch the mortar from his head, like some kind of living roman candle? (Seems like we’ve seen those extreme Japanese stunt shows do similar things.) Was it the force of the launch, or did the bombe fail to launch and detonate right there on his skull? Blunt force trauma, or severe concussion/internal hemorrage? > > Inquiring, uh, minds want to know. WAG - the launcher fired a volley of shots. The first one dislodged the launcher and caused it to fall. The second one hit him in the neck. ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2015, 3:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/first-maine-fireworks-death-unbelieveable/724316/56 "2015-07-06T15:57:32Z")
> [@Peter\_Morris](#): > > WAG - the launcher fired a volley of shots. The first one dislodged the launcher and caused it to fall. The second one hit him in the neck. The story said he died of a head injury, not a neck injury. More details [here](http://heavy.com/news/2015/07/devon-staples-calais-maine-fireworks-accident-man-put-shoot-fireworks-off-head-killed-dead-photos-facebook-4th-of-july-fourth/). > [@](#): > > “I was the first one who got there. There was no rushing him to the hospital. There was no Devon left when I got there,” his brother told the Daily News. “It was a freak accident. … But 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.” > [@](#): > > Another brother, Christopher Staples, told the Boston Herald that Devon thought it was a dud and put the mortar to his head as a joke. It then exploded, Christopher said: > > We’re thinking he was just waving his lighter around just joking and he might have caught part of it and just lit it wrong. The pressure from the explosion that was supposed to be 50 feet in the air, exploded directly above his head. It did not take it off. It made a ‘whump’ sound, like a failed explosion. As has been pointed out, resting the mortar on his head while setting it off would easily be enough to kill him, without needing to invoke some more elaborate scenario. I think the second brother’s interpretation may be wrong, and it was the charge that was supposed to lift the shell into the air that caused the recoil that killed him, rather than the explosion of the shell itself (that was supposed to occur in the air). But although it’s unclear exactly what happened, it was definitely a head trauma. At some point, “pretending to do something stupid” and “doing something stupid” are the same. ---
**Author:** ![Hypno-Toad](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/b2d939/32.png) [@Hypno-Toad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hypno-Toad)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2015, 5:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/first-maine-fireworks-death-unbelieveable/724316/57 "2015-07-06T17:06:15Z")
It is one of the tragic qualities of stupidity is that the person thinks they’re only pretending to be stupid. ---
**Author:** ![Scumpup](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ce73a5/32.png) [@Scumpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scumpup)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2015, 5:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/first-maine-fireworks-death-unbelieveable/724316/58 "2015-07-06T17:22:35Z")
> [@Hypno-Toad](#): > > It is one of the tragic qualities of stupidity is that the person thinks they’re only pretending to be stupid. No doubt. As I get older, though, I find it more difficult to laugh at stuff like this and make smug references to Darwin Awards. The guy is dead and his family is brokenhearted. There are plenty of people walking the Earth, to include me, who are alive due to nothing more than shit-ass good luck. People make bad decisions and, sometimes, die for it. Not really seeing the humor, any more.☹ ---
**Author:** ![Amateur\_Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/59ef9b/32.png) [@Amateur\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Amateur_Barbarian)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2015, 5:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/first-maine-fireworks-death-unbelieveable/724316/59 "2015-07-06T17:50:15Z")
> [@Projammer](#): > > I’m just imagining someone giving the eulogy while trying to keep a straight face. Nah, I’m with \*\*Scumpup \*\*on this. I would have found it a lot funner 20 years ago, but now it’s just sad, with maybe room for one little smirk. The eulogy needs to begin, “Who here has never taken a stupid risk or made a potentially dangerous mistake? Thought so.” I certainly have some incidents in my younger days - 14-20 or so - that still wake me up in a cold sweat some nights. ---
**Author:** ![Scumpup](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ce73a5/32.png) [@Scumpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scumpup)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2015, 6:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/first-maine-fireworks-death-unbelieveable/724316/60 "2015-07-06T18:42:09Z")
Young people, as a group, tend to overestimate themselves and, especially, they confuse shit-ass good luck with competence. I know I did. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/first-maine-fireworks-death-unbelieveable/724316.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/first-maine-fireworks-death-unbelieveable/724316.md?page=4)