July Fourth is a holiday filled with cookouts, alcohol, BBQs, family, friends, and fireworks. Lots of fireworks. But fireworks are by nature explosives and parties get out of hand and explosives are … explosive. Every year, more and more Americans are injured or killed in firework-related mishaps. That number has increased over the years as more and cheaper fireworks become available to the public.
With the proliferation of video recording devices on phones, on doorknobs, and on dashboards, the chances of getting to see a firework mishap has increased. As long as no one is seriously injured, a firework mishap can have a similar hypnotic effect. A video from July 4 of a family hanging out on a suburban lawn has gone viral after a single errant firework seems to have set off an explosion of what may have been 1 trillion fireworks.*
*Actual number may be considerably less.
The family and children all seem to have cleared out in time, and it is hard to say exactly what happened: Did the gas line of the SUV in the driveway ignite? Were all of the rest of the fireworks in boxes behind the car? Did both things happen? The good news is that no one looks as if they got hurt. Property damage, however ...