T1B

Man Dies After Setting Firework Off of His Head
Devon Staples died on the fourth of July after setting a firework tube off on top of his head in Calais, Maine. Staples, 22, was reportedly drinking at the time of the incident. He died instantly.

Maine Public Safety spokesman Steve McCausland told WCSH6 Staples placed the fireworks mortar on his head then lit it around 10 p.m. on the holiday. His death is the first for Maine since the state first legalized fireworks in 2012.

"Apparently, he thought that was a great idea," McCausland told the Associated Press. "His friends they thought they dissuaded him from doing it, and the next thing they knew, he ignited the fireworks and he was killed instantly."

Over 200 people go to the emergency room on or near the fourth each year. Injuries to the face account for 38 percent of all fireworks related injuries. Last year, nine people died from eight different fireworks related accidents.

A 28-year-old man died early Friday morning in a possible alligator attack in Orange, just outside of Beaumont, police said. The last fatal alligator attack in Texas occurred about two centuries ago.
The man, whose identity was not released pending notification of his family, was swimming with a woman in Adams Bayou off Burkart's Marina in the 1800 block of Mississippi Street when police said a large alligator apparently attacked him.
Allen Burkart owns the marina, a family-friendly place selling beer and hamburgers with a shuffleboard table, and said two of his employees were cleaning up when the man said he was going to jump in the water.
"They were begging with him not to do it," said Burkart, who is 82 and has owned the marina for 50 years.
He said the alligator, which is about 12 foot long, was spotted in the bayou in recent weeks so he put up a sign: "No Swimming. Alligator."
But he said the man jumped in anyway, followed by his girlfriend.
"He went under one time, then he hollered at her to get out of the water," Burkhart said. "Then he pulled him down the second time and that was it. I've been here all my life and this is the first time something like this has happened. ... I'm still in shock."

He thought a book would stop a bullet and make him a YouTube star. Now he’s dead.

Before Monday, before the 911 call and police investigation, Pedro Ruiz III, an aspiring YouTube star in rural Minnesota, spent considerable time convincing his girlfriend to shoot a gun at his chest.

There would be a thick encyclopedia book between the barrel and his body, authorities say he told 19-year-old Monalisa Perez. The pages, he reasoned, would stop the bullet.

He even had evidence that it had worked once before — a different book with an entrance hole but no exit.

So on Monday evening, the young couple positioned two cameras outside their home and prepared for their breakthrough stunt. They wanted fame, family said, and danger often brings it.

“Me and Pedro are probably going to shoot one of the most dangerous videos ever,” Perez teased in a tweet at 5 p.m. “HIS idea not MINE.”

It had been three months since the young couple added their vlog, La MonaLisa, to YouTube, where they posted clips of their daily lives and their 3-year-old daughter. They live in Halstad, Minn., a tiny town on the North Dakota border between Grand Forks and Fargo. Episodes featured shots from their home, the car or at the doctor’s office, which is where Perez revealed in May that she was pregnant with a boy.

Their shtick, though, was pulling minor pranks: doughnuts with baby powder instead of powdered sugar, feigning paralysis from a grocery store wheelchair, hiding hot peppers on an egg salad sandwich. Just this week, Perez posted a video of Ruiz doing a handstand inside a rotating fun house tunnel at the county fair.

But the bullet and book stunt was supposed to be their moment.

“I said, ‘Don’t do it, don’t do it,’ ” Ruiz’s aunt, Claudia Ruiz, told her nephew when he shared his idea, according to Valley News Live. “Why are you going to use a gun? Why?”

His response, she said, was simple: “Because, we want more viewers.”

With one camera attached to a ladder and the other propped on the back of a car, the couple staged their stunt, according to authorities. Ruiz held the book to his chest and Perez held the gun, a gold Desert Eagle .50 caliber pistol considered “one of the most powerful semiautomatic handguns in the world.”

From a foot away, court documents say, Perez fired.

This time, the bullet didn’t stop in the book but instead pierced Ruiz in the chest. Medics tried to revive him, authorities said, but he was declared dead at the house.

a gold Desert Eagle .50 caliber pistol considered “one of the most powerful semiautomatic handguns in the world.”.

Dinsdale wrote:

“one of the most powerful semiautomatic handguns in the world.”.

Wolfman wrote:Goofy laws in Florida allow people to purchase fireworks. There area few "tent" sales near me beside the brick and mortar stores. The problem is that it is not legal to simply fire them off unless you are scaring off crows or something. Guess a lot of folks here have crow problems.

smackaholic wrote:Fireworks are not dangerous. Inanimate objects in general are not dangerous.

Stupid people are dangerous.

smackaholic wrote:Fireworks are not dangerous. Inanimate objects in general are not dangerous.

Stupid people are dangerous.

smackaholic wrote:Fireworks are not dangerous. Inanimate objects in general are not dangerous.

Stupid people are dangerous.