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Macy's Fourth of July fireworks light up the sky over the East River in New York in a view from One World Observatory.
Fourth of July
Man dies after trying to launch a firework off the top of his head
The man was celebrating the fourth of July.
A MAN IN the US has died after trying to launch a firework off his head.
22-year-old Devon Staples had been drinking and celebrating the Fourth of July weekend in Calais, eastern Maine when the firework exploded on his head, killing him instantly.
Staples placed a reloadable fireworks mortar tube on his head and told his friends he was going to light it, police spokesperson Stephen McCausland said. But his friends urged him to stop.
“Apparently, he thought that was a great idea,” McCausland said.
“His friends they thought dissuaded him from doing it, and the next thing they knew, he ignited the fireworks and he was killed instantly.”
Staples’s brother Cody told the Daily News of New York that he was a few feet away when his brother lit the firework and was the first to come to his side after it exploded.
“There was no rushing him to the hospital. There was no Devon left when I got there,” said 25-year-old Cody Staples, who called it an accident.
“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,” he said.
At least one other person died in a fireworks-related incident over the US Independence Day weekend in Montana and a New Jersey man lost part of his leg when a tennis ball sized firework exploded while he was lighting it.
Read: This Independence Day, which US sports star are you?
Watch: You probably don’t want to be this close to an exploding fireworks factory
