Burned by an errant rocket, woman calls it quits on fireworks shows

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Firework Safety Month

Burned by an errant rocket, woman calls it quits on fireworks shows

By Dennis Thompson
HealthDay Reporter

(HealthDay News) -- Tara Aycock, her boyfriend and another couple settled on the beach at Destin , Fla. , on July 4, 2005, to watch the fireworks.

They picked a spot where you could see three different fireworks displays, two from nearby cities and a third from a local resort. "There were thousands of people there," recalled Aycock, now 37 and living in Atlanta . "It's the biggest thing that goes on there all year."

While they waited for the big show to begin, different groups of people on the beach began shooting off fireworks they'd brought with them. "They've got the high-powered stuff," she said. "Many of the groups were shooting off the biggies they brought. That's just what they do to pass the time."

One bunch on the beach worried Aycock, though. "It was obvious they were very, very drunk," she said. "They were about 50 yards away, and they were shooting off some of the high-powered stuff. They shot one, and it skimmed the top of the crowd. We said, 'Whoa! They're going to hurt somebody.' "

Shortly after that first near miss, another nearly calamitous accident occurred when the group lit a two-foot-square device that fires rockets out of the top. "They were so drunk, they had it upside down," Aycock said. "They had their chairs around it in a circle, and it blew up on them. They all flipped backwards in their chairs. They didn't get hurt, but you knew they dodged a bullet."

Everyone nearby was getting worried, but then the real fireworks shows began. People turned their attention upward to watch the pros at work painting the night sky.

But then, toward the end of the last show, the drunken bunch began shooting off fireworks again.

"They shot one off, and the pipe it was in tipped over, and it came across the beach about a foot off the ground straight at us," Aycock said. "I was the first thing in its path."

It hit her in the sternum and began to explode. "I turned and saw it coming, but it happened too fast," she said. "It was one of those that goes off multiple times. I remember it hit me, I remember burying my head in the sand, and I remember it wouldn't stop going off."

An ambulance rushed her to a hospital. Half her face was burned, on the right side, and the burns extended down her neck and across her chest and stomach. Part of her back and leg also were burned. Her hands hurt the worst, as if they were on fire, she said.

The group that had shot off the fireworks didn't stick around to help. "They took off like lightning," Aycock said. "They ran and left as quick as they could. They knew they would have been in a world of hurt."

Aycock was transferred to a burn center in Georgia , where she stayed for 10 days, undergoing multiple surgeries to debride the burns so they would heal cleanly.

"I woke up from the first surgery covered with cadaver skin where all my burns were," Aycock said. "I thought, 'I'm going to look like a monster when it's all through.' "

But her body responded well to the treatment, and she ended up not needing skin grafts. It took her a year to heal, but Aycock said she healed very well.

"I have scarring, but to me, it's miniscule to what I expected," she said. "My most prominent scars are on my stomach and chest. But I can cover it up, so it doesn't bother me."

"I told my doctor, 'Wow, I'm lucky.' He said, 'No, you're not. You got blown up.' "

She's never been to another fireworks show. "I just can't quite stomach it," Aycock said. "And I was a person who could not miss a fireworks show. But it's hard for me to watch it, because all I can think is that somebody's going to get hurt."