Horrifying. All, if you know young ppl who will use fireworks these next few weeks, please do what you can to either discourage them entirely or make sure they use them safely. Hundreds of young ppl will be in the ER with firework injuries this month. Many of these injuries will be life altering.
One of the parents at church when I was little (who named his daughter after my mom) only had three partially functional fingers on one hand, because he messed around with a firecracker in the library when he was a kid and it went badly. All the warning I ever needed.
I think he included that detail because he wanted to emphasize exactly how stupid he was being. He wasn't supposed to have the firecracker at all, IIRC, so messing with it in the open was out. He also didn't intend for it to explode right then.
The net lesson was that the things are volatile and unpredictable in addition to being dangerous - like how Captain America says that there shouldn't be ammunition storage that close to the barracks. Nobody actually intends to set off an explosion in the middle of camp, but accidents happen.
