BOY’S WARNING ON MAKING FIREWORKS

Press, Volume C, Issue 29657, 30 October 1961, Page 5

BOY’S WARNING ON MAKING FIREWORKS

(New Zealand Press Association)

AUCKLAND, Oct. 29. A 15-year-old Auckland boy, Earle Hay. yesterday Showed a six-inch scar on his stomach and said: “I was a fool. If other boys want to try malting homemade fireworks just think of me—that's a fair warning.” Earle has been two weeks In hospital and it will be a month before he is back at school. “I'M never try to make fireworks again as long as 1 live,” he said yesterday. “By rights. I should be dead now. “I found a few of those steel soda syphon bombs. I broke open some crackers and stuffed gunpowder in the cylinders. The first one just fizzed off with a white flame. “The cylinders were hard to fill, but I managed to get half an inch of universal powder in the second one. I used a fuse from another manufactured cracker, held the tube at arm’s length and fired away. “There was a tremendous explosion. My ears rang for about an hour afterwards and a man nearly half a mile down the road heard the noise. “I noticed my arm was bleeding so I went upstairs for some sticking plaster. The neighbour had heard the noise and when he came in saw that my shoulder was bleeding. I was finding it hard to breathe. TTiat’s the last I know. “The shrapnel about two inches wide ripped into my shoulder, so the surgeon

said, and angled down through my hang. hv*r and toteetines. I was lucky. “But this wasn’t my flrat attempt I have made skyrockets out of bike pumps—they didn't work. “A teacher at school told us the dangers of the chemically made fireworks. I thought the gunpowder out of crackers wouldn’t be dangerous.” he said.