Morning Disaster

This morning, a construction worker in Owensboro, Kentucky found what he thought was a homemade firework near a gas tank. As people naturally do in these situations, the man lit the firework near the gas tank. The make of the firework, which was actually commercially-made, was rather moot because either way it went blammo and sent the man to the hospital.

This is not the dumbest thing I can think of that has been done with fireworks.

The dumbest thing I can think of that has been done with fireworks involved a morning-zoo radio show called "Ray Lytle's Morning Disaster" at WQLZ-FM in Springfield, Illinois. Specifically, the dumb thing involved a man named Jim McGill, aka "Jim the Photographer", the show's resident butt monkey. McGill, as a stunt to entertain people standing in line for concerts, often stuffed a tube up his buttocks and shoots bottle rockets out of the tube.

But wait, there's more!

In May 2004, WQLZ was sponsoring a battle of the bands. Jim the Photographer was needed to once again supply his unique, horrifying idea of fun. Some rounds were deposited down the tube, and fired successfully.

Then a further round went not so well.

According to Lytle, one round must have had more sparks in it than usual. However many sparks it had, the firework blew up 5-10 feet from McGill's buttocks, and some of the sparks went down the tube.

McGill went to the hospital for a brief stay, but found no sympathy from the radio listeners. Not because they thought McGill was being stupid. Because they thought it was a prank. Remember, McGill was the station's butt monkey. On March 29, the Morning Disaster crew "mourned" his "death" from "severe rectal trauma". (Not to be confused with McGill's actual death in 2007 from undisclosed but presumably unrelated causes.) And if this didn't qualify as severe rectal trauma, who knows what does.

It's not often you get to say "thankfully, the construction worker only lit the firework next to a gas tank". As opposed to McGill, who in addition to being next to a group of people, was standing on top of a Hummer at the time and therefore was also next to a gas tank.

In conclusion, do not light fireworks next to any part of your body- hands, rectum or elsewhere. Nor anyone else's body. Or whatever petroleum deposits are laying around.