A College Kid Stepped On Latent Firework Landmine In Central Park And Blew The Majority Of His Foot Off

My first thought when reading this story is what kind of PSA we should be expecting from this kid in the near future. JPP tossed up a friendly reminder to not hold a lit firework in your closed fist. I’m kind of hoping this kid’s one is something along the lines of “Watch where you step while in Central Park this holiday weekend” or “Be careful not to be so trendy that you refuse to go to the shore like a regular person and instead have to bum around Central Park on your holiday weekend.” I’m hoping the latter, but I guess I’ll settle for the former. Regardless, it sounds like this kid is going to become the new face of peg legs.

Via Daily News:

“Connor Golden, 18, of Fairfax, Va., had just climbed down off a rock near E. 60th St. and Fifth Ave. about 10:52 a.m. when he stepped on the “shock-sensitive” explosive, Lt. Mark Torre, the commanding officer of the NYPD’s Bomb Squad, said. It was inside a black plastic bag when it exploded, a high-ranking police source said.

A disintegrated matchbook was found nearby, leading investigators to believe that someone tried to set it off sometime Friday, but left it behind when it didn’t work, the high-ranking police source said.

There was no evidence the incident was connected to terrorism, NYPD Deputy Chief John O’Connell said. Police officials believe it is an isolated incident.

“The explosion could have been an experiment with fireworks or homemade explosives,” O’Connell said. “We believe this could have been put here as some sort of experiment.”

One witness said the victim’s foot was “all but gone.”

Another said the blast sounded “like a cannon.””

RIP this kid’s dreams of getting married to that cutie down the hall with a foot fetish. Or maybe this will make him exotic. Everyone has two feet and ten toes. This kid now has one foot and 6 toes, five on his foot and one giant one that really is just an ankle stump. Yeah, this sucks, but he also now has a built-in prop if he wants to be the guy from Saw that cuts his foot off. If we’re going to be placing blame here, though, obviously it has to land on whoever just left a bag full of fireworks lying around. That’s just irresponsible. People talk about gun control and the dangers of kids getting their hands on one because, understandably, everyone just assumes that live fireworks aren’t going to be left out in the open. That should be this kid’s PSA theme. “Don’t forget, leaving live fireworks out in the open for people to unsuspectingly jump on while practicing a little July Fourth parkour will probably ruin someone’s life.”