Rescuers find gruesome scene at a Honolulu home after a fireworks blast kills 3, injures over 20
Emergency crews arrived to a chaotic and gruesome scene in a Honolulu neighborhood after a large New Year’s Eve fireworks toppled after being lit, causing a fiery, shrapnel-strewn explosion that killed three people and injured more than 20 others, several of whom serious.
Two women died at the scene and a third woman died at a hospital, authorities said Wednesday as they begged people to give up the city’s New Year’s tradition of setting off fireworks. Officials promised tougher penalties for illegal fireworks.
Hawaii Governor Josh Green graphically described the deaths Wednesday during a news conference to highlight the potential danger of fireworks. “We are talking about the worst possible injuries in war zones that cost their lives.”
More than two dozen people taken to hospitals with severe burns and shrapnel wounds included children, said officials, who had not yet publicly identified any victims, including those killed.
Police are investigating whether charges against the person who set off the fireworks around midnight were justified, Honolulu Police Chief Arthur Logan said.
The explosion occurred at a three-story house with a carport on the bottom floor. Piles of debris, including bundles of blackened fireworks mortars, could be seen outside the house in daylight Wednesday.
The explosion broke windows across the street. It happened when a lit bundle of mortar-style fireworks, called a “cake,” tipped over or fell off a table and shot sideways into crates of additional fireworks, which then exploded.
The rounds of the cake could be separated but were lit as a bundle of 50, some of which officials said were fireworks worth tens of thousands of dollars inside the house.
Paramedics arrived but had to triage several houses away – separating victims with the worst injuries and treating them first – because of parked cars and crowds on the streets, Dr. Jim Ireland, director of Honolulu’s emergency department.
Some people nearby continued to set off fireworks even as blast victims were taken to hospitals, officials said.
The neighborhood is near Honolulu International Airport and a joint U.S. Air Force and Navy base and just over 2 miles (3.22 kilometers) east of the USS Arizona Memorial, which honors sailors killed in the U.S. attack on Pearl Harbor. pulled in. World War II.
“I have been in emergency rooms for over 30 years and this is probably one of the worst calls I have ever experienced in terms of the immense tragedy, the number of patients and the severity of the injuries,” Ireland said at an earlier news conference.
A fourth person was killed in another fireworks explosion elsewhere on Oahu, officials said. At least four other serious injuries occurred that night in unrelated fireworks accidents.
Social media posts showed fireworks being set off in many parts of Honolulu, even though sparklers, fountains and aerial fireworks are illegal and a permit is required to set off fireworks, according to the Honolulu Fire Department.
“We are angry, frustrated and deeply saddened by this needless loss of life and suffering. It’s a tragic way to start the new year,” said Mayor Rick Blangiardi. “No one should have to suffer so much pain as a result of a reckless and illegal activity.”
Green said he is investigating whether new penalties, including a misdemeanor for possession of large fireworks, are needed to restrict fireworks in Hawaii.
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Gruver reported from Cheyenne, Wyoming. John Hanna contributed to this report from Topeka, Kansas.