re: #319 thedopefishlives

I spent an afternoon one year chaining fuses together for a spectacular finale we had lined up. We chained together two separate banks of 10-shot 3” mortars and we planned to fill with some boxes while a crew carefully loaded the chain.

Then the rain came.

We shot everything in the field (we’d pre-loaded the guns that evening) and started firing as fast as our loaders could pop shells into the tubes. When it came time for the finale, we had no filler time; the loaders raced down the line and loaded the chain. Two of them got cross-loaded and one shell, instead of flying, flopped out on the ground. Right at my dad’s feet (who was firing that bank). I’m in the back of the field with the eights, and for all I know, I’m about to watch my dad get his feet blown off. I’ve never seen my old man run that fast. He was safe in the end, thankfully.

This was the scene last year in Simi Valley when the display suffered a catastrophic failure and fired into the crowd. 28 people were injured.

SIMI Valley fireworks accident