........and they walk amongst us....................

Sorry for re-posting the same story in your thread
I thought this was the Darwin award thread you posted the other day - in my haste I scrolled to the last post - I blame the beer...it made me drink it

 

Weeding out the stupid ones can only make the gene pool smarter...

 

Careful drinking that, I believe that was also the root cause of why the story came to be..............

 

Any court that would even think about allowing a case like this needs to be on trial themselves.......

 

Remember, your dealing with lawyers on both sides of the bench......................we all know how lawyers operate, especially when they get the smell of $$$$$$$ to be had....................

 

Easy fellas....stupid, yes but this was still someones kid.

Not trying to be a downer, but maybe those Jack Assparagus series and all programs like them need to be sued for giving these idiots ideas. And I am sure that someone recorded it on their not so smart cell phone.

Getting off the soap box now. Back to regular programming

 

Very true, but if it were my kid, the last thing I would think of is suing the manufacture. Funny, the older i get, the more careful I get-maybe its because I learned that pain hurts, and yeah I learned the hard way too

 

Not sure that I can agree that this 21 yo movie actor should be classified as a "kid". Would have thought that by 21 years of age there would have been ample time for development of working brain cells and the ability to rationalize "common sense" thinking. Maybe I'm over estimating here........... I find it all too common in these times to remedy situations "by suing someone else" as opposed to taking credit for ones own actions. That might be old-world thinking, but that's what happens when you age.......just sayin'

 

here is what is in the local paper today.
Fiancee of Calais fireworks victim says he didn’t light mortar purposely
Devon Staples died Saturday after lighting a fireworks mortar on his head.
By Joe Lawlor Portland Press Herald
[email protected] | @joelawlorph | 207-791-6376


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Hawley, who was at the party where Staples died, said he also may have tripped, although she’s not sure because “everything happened so fast.”
“He fell to the ground. I still thought he was joking, playing around. I ran over and asked if he was OK, but he wasn’t,” said Hawley, who wept during a telephone interview Monday. She said the group called 911, but medical personnel determined he had already died by the time paramedics arrived.
Hawley said they were gathered on the porch of the friend’s house, and Staples was in the backyard when he joked about lighting the fireworks on his head.
“He would never intentionally do something like that. He was just trying to get us to laugh,” Hawley said.
When Staples, 22, lit the fireworks, Hawley said she saw it “fizzle” instead of shoot away from his head.
“I yelled at him to throw it, but it was too late,” Hawley said.
State Fire Marshal Joe Thomas said an investigation into the incident showed that Staples’ death was accidental.
Thomas said he did not know the specific type of fireworks that killed Staples, but it was a “reloadable mortar.” Reloadable mortars include tubes and explosive shells that are placed in the tubes for launching, according to explanations of the products by fireworks retailers.
Thomas said fire officials are still counting the number of fireworks injuries in Maine stemming from the weekend, but estimated that they were in the range of eight to 12. Including the fireworks set off around the New Year’s holiday, 2015 will likely set a record for the number of fireworks injuries, Thomas said. There were 11 injuries in 2014. Before Maine legalized the sale of fireworks in 2012, injuries were in the low single digits, he said.
“If we had more than two in a whole year, that was worth noting,” Thomas said.
Staples’ mother, Kathleen Staples, said she is going to reach out to lawmakers about the possibility of tighter controls over fireworks, the Associated Press reported. The state should consider requiring safety training courses before allowing someone to use them, she said. She compared fireworks with other regulated items such as cars and guns.
“At least it’d be a little bit more than, ‘Here you go,'” Staples told the AP. “That’s an explosive. They didn’t just hand me a license and put me in the car.”
Democratic Rep. Michel Lajoie, a retired fire chief from Lewiston who has pushed to repeal Maine’s fireworks law in the past, said Monday that he’s considering trying to introduce another measure next year but acknowledged it faces long odds. Retailers have fiercely opposed any effort in the Legislature to restrict the use of fireworks.
Lajoie said even a ban might not prevent injuries and deaths, the AP reported.
“They’re going to say, ‘Well, you can’t regulate stupidity’ … and it’s true, you can’t. But the fact of the matter is you have to try something,” Lajoie said. “I’m not giving up.”
Hawley said Staples had planned to attend Washington County Community College in the fall to become a veterinary technician. He loved dogs, and would often work to reunite stray dogs with their owners. She said they would often dog-sit or train dogs, and had been thinking of starting a dog-sitting business.
In 2014, the couple moved to Florida, where Staples got a job at Disney World portraying characters such as Gaston, the villain from “Beauty and the Beast,” or Captain Hook from “Peter Pan.”
But Hawley said the work at Disney World was not consistent, and the couple moved back to Maine in November.
Staples was a former high school football player, a whitewater rafting guide and a fantasy gaming enthusiast. He played the card game Magic: The Gathering and the role-playing game Dungeons & Dragons, she said.
“I want people to know who he really was,” Hawley said. “If I got down or depressed over something, he would start dancing with me. He would always say that people can’t frown when they’re dancing.”
The couple got engaged on Feb. 2, and had thought about getting married at the courthouse a few weeks ago. But they decided instead to plan a formal wedding, and were saving up for the ceremony and reception, Hawley said.
“He was a family man. He wanted to make his family happy,” she said.
The family has set up a fundraising page to help defray the costs of a funeral.

 

Sad... is the only word I can think of.

 

I feel for the family, but even if he was playing around after lighting dozens of them and going off successfully you run around drunk with a mortar tube on your head?
I blame the state of Maine for depriving these youngsters(for 70+yrs) the respect that fireworks deserve - like throwing them in a burning firepit

 

In the end of course it's just another way that a young drunk guy "thought" of to "impress" his friends...

 

Thought this was a zombie thread...watched World War Z the other night.

 

Very true rotti. Too many kids these days are not learning the life lessons which result in common sense, being responsible for their actions or earned respect that most of us did-and yeah respect is earned, not something you are automatically entitled to. Too many parents and agencies that started out with good intentions have sheltered some kids but have taken the original intention way to far resulting in many young adults that dont have a real clue about consequences or a good base to learn it either. The media is no help here either. Kudos to those that still raise kids with a good head on their shoulder.