Man dies after launching fireworks from his head during Fourth of July celebrations

A 22-year-old man who was drinking and celebrating the U.S. Fourth of July holiday, tried to launch a firework off the top of his head, killing him instantly. Devon Staples and his friends were drinking and setting off fireworks in the backyard of a friend’s home in eastern Maine, said Stephen McCausland, a spokesman for the state Department of Public Safety. Staples, of Calais, placed a reloadable fireworks mortar tube on his head and told his friends he was going to light it, McCausland said. But his friends urged him to stop.

Apparently, he thought that was a great idea. His friends they thought dissuaded him from doing it, and the next thing they knew, he ignited the fireworks and he was killed instantly.

Stephen McCausland, spokesman for U.S. department of public safety.

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. Staples’ death is the first fireworks fatality in Maine since the state legalized fireworks on New Years Day 2012, authorities said. Lawmakers had voted to repeal a 1949 law banning fireworks, reasoning the industry would create jobs and generate revenue. State fire marshals were also investigating several other Fourth of July fireworks accidents involving injuries in Friendship, Jefferson, Lebanon and Woodstock. They said most of the accidents involved burns and eye injuries.

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