Not a good DIY project

[bcp]

Fire officials: Man suspected of making DIY fireworks severely injured in explosion | The Columbian

A 36-year-old man was taken to a Portland hospital Thursday after he was severely injured in an explosion, and his arm required partial amputation, according to fire officials.
Clark County Deputy Fire Marshal Caleb Barnes said it is believed the man was mixing ingredients for homemade fireworks and caused an explosion.


Bruce

 

[oosik]

I didn't watch the video. I watched the carpal tunnel operation on my left wrist - until it made me sick. When the DR said - "would you like to watch". Hey - I'm a big tough man. They put the screen back up when I started turning green.

 

[Alan W.]

We had an individual who was running a illegal black powder business out of his home garage. He was buying it in bulk and repackaging it in pound size.
Something went wrong and if I remember they found only small pieces of him. His helper faired a little better in that he was in a larger chunk.
The investigators said that they believed he was using a scoop that sparked and set off the explosion.

 

[Alan W.]

I didn't watch the video. I watched the carpal tunnel operation on my left wrist - until it made me sick. When the DR said - "would you like to watch". Hey - I'm a big tough man. They put the screen back up when I started turning green.

I watched them cut on mine for a while then I fell asleep. They had given me some good stuff and it was hard to stay awake.
Did your surgery totally fix the problem?
Mine helped tremendously but wasnt a total cure.

 

[bunyip]

We had an individual who was running a illegal black powder business out of his home garage. He was buying it in bulk and repackaging it in pound size.
Something went wrong and if I remember they found only small pieces of him. His helper faired a little better in that he was in a larger chunk.
The investigators said that they believed he was using a scoop that sparked and set off the explosion.

There was a Darwin award given to an Austrian who decided to cut a hand grenade with an angle grinder (to make a lamp stand), the pathologist stated that a large portion of the victims brain was missing but was unable to conclude if it was the result of the explosion or the cause of it.

 

[oosik]

Alan W - "did the surgery totally fix my problem". I would have to say "yes". I have the same mobility in my right hand/wrist as in my left hand/wrist.

Realizing that over time my mobility in both has diminished somewhat and on cold/damp days both can ache a little. A big help & temporary cure - I run both hands/wrists under warm water for a couple minuets. It helps on those days when they want to ache.

Hard physical work does not make either ache. Inactivity, first thing in the morning when I get up, is the time they are most likely to hurt a little.

 

[Jim Shooz]

There was this kid who got hold of an old military shell casing and decided to make his own fireworks. Filled it with matchheads.and wondered how they would light it. Drill a hole in the bottom for a fuse. The heat from the drilling set off the explosives. He qualified for a Darwin Award.

 

[2LaneCruzer]

Fire officials: Man suspected of making DIY fireworks severely injured in explosion | The Columbian

A 36-year-old man was taken to a Portland hospital Thursday after he was severely injured in an explosion, and his arm required partial amputation, according to fire officials.
Clark County Deputy Fire Marshal Caleb Barnes said it is believed the man was mixing ingredients for homemade fireworks and caused an explosion.


Bruce

More than likely he was formulating explosive materials using a chlorate of some kind; Potassium Chlorate (KClO3) for example. Chlorates are extremely sensitive; they make great fires and explosions, but very tricky. The company I used to work for manufactured chlorates; the same kind that were used in the NASA solid fuel rockets, and the kind that caused the fire and explosion in Henderson Nevada. One of the workers told me that he had gotten his gloves saturated with a chlorate solution (OK as long as it is in water solution); he let it dry, and when he took his gloves off, they burst into flame, from just the friction of removing them. Yeah, it's bad stuff.

When I was working in the laboratory, they brought me a box full of scraps of material from a spray plane to test for combustibility. To make a long story short, the plane had been spraying a chlorate solution on cotton fields (a defoliant), and when he landed at the airport; it was hot in Arizona that day...his plane, sitting on the Tarmac, burst into flames. The stuff is very, very fickle and you have to know what you're doing...especially when you mix it with something organic.