Kimbolton display accident

Firm 'sorry' over firework horror

The Health and Safety Executive has begun an inquiry
The organiser of a fireworks display in Northants, where 11 people were injured, has apologised to those hurt.
Fireworks firm Kimbolton, which had prepared the Bonfire Night party at Wicksteed Park, near Kettering, also said it was carrying out a review.

Ronel Lehmann, spokesman for the company, said the firm was "very distressed about what has happened" and "apologetic to the families".

He added: "We invest very, very heavily in safety at firework displays."

About 15,000 Spectators were watching the event when a firework shot into the crowd.

The injured, including seven children, one of whom was seriously hurt, were standing behind the safety cordon when they were struck on Saturday night.

Boy 'stable'

The Health and Safety Executive has begun an inquiry into the accident.

The injured were taken to Kettering General Hospital for treatment, mainly for burns to the lower body.

Two children - aged eight and 11 - were detained at the hospital and a third child, a boy aged about 10, was transferred to a specialist burns unit with serious injuries, it was revealed on Sunday.

His condition was described as serious but stable.

Kimbolton has issued an apology to the injured and their families and said it would carry out a review of its safety procedures.

Mr Lehmann, spokesman for the company, said last night's incident had been caused by a malfunctioning "shell".

The firework exploded but did not eject from the mortar tube in which it was encased.


We will be reviewing the safety and positioning of fireworks and, more importantly, the findings will be imparted to our competitors
Ronel Lehmann, Kimbolton Fireworks

Instead of shooting hundreds of feet into the air, it blew a hole in the tube.

The explosion had a "cascade effect", blowing unexploded shells out of other tubes nearby.

One of these stray mortars ignited and shot towards the crowd.

Mr Lehmann said Kimbolton had run 65 organised displays in the last two weeks.

One of its most high-profile events was the firework display for the Trafalgar celebrations.

Mr Lehmann added: "We have a huge team of people who are dedicated to putting on displays. This is a very sad day for us.

"We will be reviewing the safety and positioning of fireworks and, more importantly, the findings will be imparted to our competitors."

Peter Tait, from St John Ambulance, said a number of children were involved because they were put at the front of the crowd.

Wicksteed Park managing director Mr Roberts said: "All available staff, including our first aid team and St John's ambulance, immediately attended the injured and ambulances were called.

"Six were in attendance plus one from St John Ambulance Brigade."

Taken from http://news.bbc.co.u...ire/4411776.stm

the show i went to (public event), had a few low breaks, seems to happen alot. i hope none of the hurt die.

This certainly isn't going to be good for publicity for Kimbolton.

Unfortunatly Flower pots happen, one of the shows I was on a 5inch shell blew the tube out. You cant really prepare for it, Kimbolten will be fine unless they're safety distances are found to be off. Was the show electric or hand fired? The Operators ok?

Electricly fired by a computer. The shells in questions were (According to Kimbolton) three times the required safety distance.

I hear it was a Catherine Wheel that span off into the croud through the barrier?

Same thing happened to me last night, but noone was harmed. The wheel ripped its self off the screw

I guess they didn't notice the mortar rearrangement, the spotter carries the responsibility for that. They should have scrammed the entire sequence once a rack blew apart, or at least isolated it. My guess is they were so confident in their distance from the audience they watched the show instead of hovering over the abort button.

Gotta admit, I've done that too on fully automatic shows.

Goes to show there is a lot of wisdom in spacing out and burrying everything, even smaller calibre non-salute shots.

Alany,

I am not at liberty to discuss the incident in question but with regards to your previous post I can assure everyone that the firer saw the inicial malfunction and immidiately shut down the firing system. What happened after that was purely a freak incident.
I will say that all staff are deeply saddened by the incident in question and our thoughts are with all those injured as well as the firer who has been deeply traumatised by the event.

At present there is a lot of speculation and not so accurate reports from some quarters of the media and I would urge members of the forum not to speculate even further. There was no breach of safety measures or distances at the event in question and once the HSE has completed its inquiry I am sure the findings will be published.

Kimbolton have an inpecable safety record and for those of you who have had the oppourtunity to crew for Kimbolton in the past will know that spectator safety is always paramount.

Mark

Edited by The_Djinn, 07 November 2005 - 09:54 AM.

Kimbolton have an inpecable safety record and for those of you who have had the oppourtunity to crew for Kimbolton in the past will know that spectator safety is always paramount.

Mark

I can vouch for this.

I have seen a Kimbolton firer shut a show down on spotting a danger. The gap between the danger becoming apparant and the show being shut down was about 1 - 1? seconds. Trust me on this - employee in question did not have their eyes on the show.

I can assure everyone out there that they know their job and they do it well. I prob. owe my life to that particular firer.

Could this cause an uproar about mortars?, apparently from next year the "large" rockets (the ones with 4ft + sticks) will be banned from public use according to the guy at SP fireworks (a store near me and Reg). Could an incident such as this cause mortars to be banned again? I think it is a very unfortunate incident and obviously Kimbolton were good with safety, but this could be just more ammo for the anti-firework people.

Edited by sizzle, 07 November 2005 - 07:40 PM.

I doubt Shells will be banned from the profesional range, that just woulndt make sence. They play a huge roll in most displays...

I know, but they were banned a while ago due to deaths occuring.

Banned for sale to the general public with out Public liability insurance, they were never out right banned. They should stay this way, saves the stupid school teachers going back to the lit firework and sticking they're head over the tube, or falling onto the tube... idiots...

True.

If you ban shells even from professional displays, they you can kiss the modern firework display as you know it goodbye (which would please some ignorant prats)