BAY SHORE, N.Y. - A delayed fireworks blast killed a man, partially decapitating him when he peered into the mouth of a launch tube at a neighborhood Fourth of July party.
Keith Seymour, 34, had lit the fuse of the aerial bomb as part of the unlicensed display on Long Island, Suffolk County police said. When the charge that would have launched the device initially failed to fire, he looked inside the 5-inch mortar tube.
Then the charge did go off and the blast tore off part of his head, officers said.
The accident remained under investigation, police said.
Elsewhere, a mortar tube fell over during a fireworks display at Woodville, Ohio, firing projectiles into a crowd of about 2,000 people. Eleven people were injured.
Woodville Mayor Jan Busdeker said he saw three of the projectiles skim across the ground and into the crowd. Two of the injured were treated for burns at a hospital; the others were treated at the scene.
Two fireworks crew members suffered cuts and bruises at Chandler, Ariz., when a pyrotechnic charge exploded in a holding rack.
And at Craig, Colo., a fireworks mortar shell exploded after the fireworks display had finished. Six firefighters went to a hospital for hearing tests.
''It was a 10-inch tube with a 10-inch dud in it and guys were just standing around when it went off,'' Craig Fire Chief Roy Mason said.