Explosive Engagement 
2003 Reader Submission
Pending Acceptance
About 15 years ago I attended an engagement party for a co-worker. The party was being held at his farm in rural Missouri.
As the temperature that day was near 100 degrees the party area had been set up near the creek bottoms to take advantage of shade trees and cool pools. As the terrain was somewhat uneven, most party goers parked their vehicles near the entrance and walked down to the picnic area.
The Best Man (the groom-to-be's brother) and his roomate arrived with the kegs packed on ice. They parked his pickup near the picnic grounds and the kegs were tapped. After 8 some odd hours of drinking somebody broke out a few fireworks and we all dodged bottle rockets and roman candles for awhile.
The Best Man's roommate (a professional welder who's welding rig just happened to be the beer wagon) decided to treat us all to a big firework. He took a 50 gal trashbag and filled it with a mixture of oxygen and acetylene.
The idea was that they would attach a "fuse" of toilet paper, light it and run...
However, when the Best Man walked through the tall dry grass to attach the tissue paper fuse, the static electricity thus generated caused the bag to ignite.
The Welder suffered severe flash burns to the face and eys, two broken ear-drums and severe burns to his left hand.
The Best Man however was left standing nearly naked as the blast shredded his blue jeans leaving only the waistband intact with streamers of jean material hanging down. It resembled something from Roadrunner-vs-Coyote. He suffered burns and severe bruising to his groin and upper legs. The doctor commented that he was lucky he hadn't blown his unit clean off. Submitted on 05/17/2002
Submitted by:
Bill Doyle
Reference:
Personal Account
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