DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. – A Daytona Beach man suffered a serious hand injury early Monday when a firework he was holding exploded, police said.
Jeromy Davis, 44, was airlifted to Orlando Regional Medical Center after DeLand police said he had "what appeared to be a piece of his hand/fingers missing," WKMG reports.
Police said officers found a trail of blood leading from the parking lot of the Comfort Inn, where Davis was found, to the connecting parking lot of the Dunkin Donuts next door.
A woman who was with Davis said they heard an unknown object "go off," according to police. Davis said that he grabbed the object and it suddenly exploded, according to a police report.
Police, however, said there were inconsistencies in their story.
Surveillance video recorded at a Dunkin Donuts near a Comfort Inn showed Davis holding a firecracker before there were two flashes of light, police said.
Davis and a woman are then seen running to the hotel, where the manager called 911.
“Some kind of explosion just happened,” the hotel manager told the dispatcher. “A guy is walking around with blood on him. I can smell something burning."
Davis' condition has not been released.
Meanwhile, a 25-year-old Fort Lauderdale man was taken to a hospital on Monday with injuries to his hand in a firework incident.
Also, a Plantation man lost at least one finger while recently handling a firework.
In 2015, New York Giants defensive end Jason Pierre-Paul mangled his right hand when a firework exploded in Coral Springs.