The fireworks company contracted to perform the America’s Hometown Fourth of July Fireworks Display over the Cedar River in downtown Charles City said Monday a shell malfunction at the start of the grand finale caused some of the launching equipment to tip over and shoot into the large crowd gathered to watch the show.
    However, an official from the State Fire Marshal’s office said the investigation into the exact how and why of the accident on July 4 could take months to sort through before making a final determination.
    “We may never know exactly what happened because the evidence involved was destroyed in the blast,” said Deputy Fire Marshal Bryan Shupe. “There’s not a whole lot left to work with.”
    The ensuing series of shell explosions, high-velocity debris and a massive fireball generated by the misfire that blew into a portion of the crowd sent 38 people to the hospital for treatment, 12 of which were transported from the scene by ambulance. Viva Boerschel, the director of nursing at Floyd County Medical Center in Charles City, reported Monday that 34 people initially came to FCMC for treatment related to the fireworks accident on Friday, with three more coming in on Saturday morning and one more since then. Two of the injured were subsequently transferred to other medical facilities – one was airlifted by helicopter to the University of Iowa Hospital and Clinics in Iowa City, while the other was taken by ambulance to Mercy Medical Center in Mason City.
    Everyone else, Boerschel said, has been treated and released from the Charles City facility. Eric Whipple, the public information officer for the Charles City Fire Department, reported earlier that the vast majority of injuries were minor in nature – burns, cuts and abrasions. Shupe added most of the injuries occurred on the lower legs of the victims.
    No names, ages or conditions of any of the injured were being released.
    J&M Displays Inc., the fireworks firm involved based in Yarmouth, issued a press release Monday morning stating its thoughts and prayers go out to the injured spectators, their families and everyone involved. The company added it, “regrets the disappointment resulting from this unfortunate accident.”
    “J&M Displays ... is working closely with all regulatory agencies to discover the cause of the malfunction,” the release continued. J&M’s insurance company was on site Saturday, as well, to assist in the evaluation of the accident.
    The mishap occurred at 10:27 p.m., right near the end of the scheduled half hour fireworks display. As has been a long-time tradition, a grand finale was planned involving a massive volley of shells, one right after another, to provide a near continuous display high above the river. In addition, a special encore treat was planned this year involving a dozen 12-inch shells fired from different spots to create a “ring of fire” around the community. Those were to be fired separately from the main downtown launch location in the parking lot of the former Theisen’s building at 90 S. Main St.
    As the initial launch of that finale took place, however, there was a brilliant flash and explosion, followed by a series of flashes at or near ground level that mushroomed sideways toward the south end of the Main Street bridge and the courthouse parking lot just beyond. Hundreds of onlookers were seated throughout that area, many in lawn chairs or on blankets to watch the fireworks show.
    Chaos ensued after that, as people screamed and scrambled to escape the hot, shrapnel-filled blast or dove to cover and protect children and other family members. Many spectators not immediately around the launch zone didn’t realize there had been a mishap because some of the estimated 200-plus shells in the finale did go up in the air and go off as planned, as did the ring of fire around town afterward.
Emergency response praised
    Downtown, however, there was stunned silence from the crowd, broken by the wail of sirens as emergency responders rushed to aid the injured. Additional ambulances were called in from neighboring communities, as were two medical helicopters as a precautionary measure.
A number of people who witnessed the emergency response praised those who helped. Likewise, Boerschel remarked that many extra medical personnel showed up at the hospital to assist.
    “Nearly all of our medical staff responded, including two surgeons, although no surgical procedures related to the incident were performed that night,” she said Monday. “We just had a follow-up meeting with the response personnel and we all agreed it went very well, considering the large number of victims.”
    Boerschel said this was the largest trauma demand on the hospital since the tornado of 1968.
    “We had just held a health care preparedness drill about a month ago, practicing for mass casualties, so that training came in very handy,” she commented. “Of course, there are always things afterwards that we can look back on and improve – and we will, particularly on the paperwork end. But overall, I think we handled the situation about as well as we could.”
    She said “all ages” were treated that night, with triage set up in the hallway and minor injuries tended to in the day surgery and outpatient clinic areas to free up the emergency rooms for the more seriously injured.
    As for crowd control, Boerschel said there really was no major issues in dealing with all of the family and friends of the victims who showed up at FCMC.
    “The police generously offered to handle crowd control, but we really were OK. Everyone was actually pretty polite and understanding.”
Investigation continues
    Understanding just what happened at the launch site, though, may well take some time, said Shupe.
    “This is a long, drawn-out process we’re looking at,” he reported. “There’s a lot to this whole process, especially since everything involved in the accident was pretty well destroyed.”
    Shupe did say that some of the unfired shells at the scene had been obtained and the J&M crew was cooperating fully to help recreate the launch setup which involved 13 racks of firing tubes in a circle, each rack anchored down on the ends with steel rods.
    “We’ll do some test firing and see if we can recreate what happened, but for the most part we are having to rely on video, photographs and eyewitness accounts to try and piece it all together,” he remarked.
    Shupe noted one of two scenarios is the most likely — both involving one of the first shells to be ignited in the launch sequence malfunctioning.
    “It could have exploded in the launcher and destroyed the launchers next to it, igniting the shells which then exploded in every which direction,” he theorized. “Or that first blast may have tipped some of the launch racks in other directions and the shells launched off towards the crowd. We just don’t know yet, and may not know for months.
    “It could be anything at this point from a manufacturing flaw, to the shell being loaded wrong, to who knows what. We may never really know everything, but we’ll take a good hard look and talk with as many people as we can to try and find out.”
    In the meantime, Shupe said he plans on meeting with a specialist in Cedar Rapids later this week to go over some of the information collected thus far.