"If you ever find a firework on the ground, even if you think you trust it, you don’t trust it."
Sound advice from a Dade City 10-year-old who watched his dad land in the hospital after a fireworks accident in Pasco County.
WFLA says that, on Monday, 30-year-old Danny Ridgeley Jr. was just outside of his home off State Street in Dade City when he attempted to light a fireworks mortar with a short wick before dropping it in a firing tube. The firework exploded before he could pull his hand away.
The mortar, according to WFTS, was found on the side of the road after Christmas.
“He came out here with a lighter torch, lit it, and all of the sudden [it] didn’t go up in the the air," Ashley Nicholls, Ridgeley’s fiance, told the WFLA, adding that he had to get surgery on his hand. “He blew off his thumb, he broke his finger, and he has to have a sling on his pinky. I’m hoping they can recover his fingers.”
WFTS also wrote that the road beside the home was covered in blood and broken pieces of a lighter Tuesday. Nicholls, for her part, is banning fireworks for the foreseeable future.
"No more fireworks,” she said. “We can watch them but we’re not doing them."
