By Lindsey Bever July 6 at 2:24 AM
(WCSH via Facebook)
A 22-year-old man celebrating the Fourth of July was killed instantly over the weekend when authorities said he tried to launch fireworks from atop his head.
Devon Staples had been drinking with family and friends Saturday night in Calais, Maine, a small town near the Canadian border, when he put a reloadable fireworks mortar tube on his head and threatened to light it, Maine Department of Public Safety spokesman Stephen McCausland told theAssociated Press.
“His friends they thought dissuaded him from doing it, and the next thing they knew, he ignited the fireworks and he was killed instantly,” McCausland said.
Mortar tubes are usually made from cardboard and used to hold prepackaged charges, though authorities did not know what kind of fireworks were in the shell.
[VIDEO: How fireworks get their shape]
Maine Fire Marshal Joe Thomas told thePortland Press Herald that Staples’ friends thought they had talked him out of the stunt and “went back to the firepit.” Then they realized he had put the mortar tube on his head and was ready to light it.
The fireworks exploded, causing a fatal head injury, authorities said.
Staples’ brother, 25-year-old Cody Staples, called it an accident.
“I was the first one who got there,” he told the New York Daily News. “There was no rushing him to the hospital. There was no Devon left when I got there.
“It was a freak 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.”
Staples lived in Orlando where he once worked at Disney World, according to his Facebook page. He would dress up as characters and talk to children.