A 27-year-old woman was killed in Melvindale, Mich., while setting off Fourth of July fireworks when she failed to move her head out of the way after launching a 3-inch mortar bomb.
A 55-year-old man in Fall River County, S.D., was killed in August when he accidentally shot himself in the stomach. According to police, he was attempting to show friends that a key point in a recent CSI television show was wrong (that is, according to the script, a victim could not physically have managed to shoot herself in the stomach).
This article appears in Oct 24-30, 2007.