Every year there’s a hot air balloon festival where I live. This video of a hot air balooon striking power lines and bursting into flames is why I do not attend. Call me crazy or paranoid, but I think I’m just fine down here on the ground.
Witnesses told the Worcester Telegram that they were horrified when they saw the balloon drifting near the lines, realizing that the pilot would not be able to clear the looming hazard.
“I saw the guy was trying to get it up,” Elvin Liciaga, who lives nearby, told the paper. “I just heard him trying to hit the flare for it to go up.”
At least five people were injured and the 10 year-old inside me is trying REALLY hard not to make a he “was trying to get it up” joke right now out of respect to the injured because that looked scary as hell.