The firecracker exploded in the teen’s hands, and while police are not saying where he got the idea, the fire department is warning that the internet is a common source of dangerous tutorials.
The explosion happened on the afternoon of Monday, May 23, 2016 at a home on Midridge Close Southeast. EMS transported the 17-year-old male to Foothills Medical Centre in serious condition.
Police are not saying where the teen found the information on how to make the firecracker, but there are endless sources on the internet that are easy to access.
“You search something up and you just got pages and pages of it,” said Ozzi Doherty, a 12-year-old student who had attempted to make a small incendiary device called a smoke pen from instructions on the internet. Fortunately he wasn’t hurt, but he says there is peer pressure to try experiments like these.
“The big thing is social status, like how many viewers or followers that you have, so they want to film it and put it on here and show everyone all the things that they’re doing and they think they are all cool doing it,” he said.
Authorities warn parents in particular to be aware of what kids are looking at on the internet.
“There are a lot of bad ideas on the internet,” said Carol Henke with the Calgary Fire Department. “We should always be knowing what our children are accessing, and part of that is knowing is that open line of communication and setting those expectations of what safe behavior is.”
There have been several instances of people making items using internet instructions that have led to injury or even death, something Ozzi Doherty says is making him think twice.
"I didn’t really know the dangers of what it could really do, like if it set the plastic on fire or something, but yeah, I just thought it was cool and to show off to my friends,” he said.
Meantime, the Calgary teen who was taken to hospital is continuing to recover, though he may face loss of limbs due to the explosion.
