LANSING, Mich. — A 10-year old boy from DeWitt Township is currently in the hospital with severe injuries after some type of explosive went off in his hand.
The incident happened while he was at his great-grandmother’s house going through a box of Christmas ornaments the family says the great-grandmother purchased at a garage sale.
His mother Brittany Moist was at work at the time, but says the whole thing was a freak accident.
“Last year, my grandmother bought a Christmas box from a yard sale. It was full of ornaments and decorations and stuff. Connor found this little silver one. It had a hook on it like all the other ornaments and he seen a little wick on it and he thought it was a smoke bomb,” said Moist.
Before anyone could stop him, Connor lit the explosive.
Moist’s godmother Shanda Storie was at the house at the time and says it felt like time froze.
“I ran in the house to find a towel to wrap his arm. Sat him down, ran back in the house, called 9-1-1,” said Storie.
Three days later, Connor is still in the hospital recovering.
Moist says he has five forehead stitches, chest and abdomen gages and burns. He has lost his eyebrows, eyelashes, front hairline, and the index and middle finger on his left hand. She says he also has hearing loss in both ears.
“He’s very upset about what happened and now he’s gonna only have three fingers on one hand and he can’t go back to school right now and he’s worried about the future,” said Moist.
There’s still confusion about what the explosive was.
The call came into police as a firework, but now the family says they aren’t so sure and believe the ornament look-alike was really a homemade explosive.
“I don’t believe it was a firework at all. It’s what we wanted to believe. It’s what it looked like. I don’t believe by the way it went off and what happened. There’s no way that was a simple firework,” said Storie.
DeWitt Township Police say they aren’t currently looking at it as a homemade explosive and haven’t heard from the family yet.
“If there is additional information that has been learned through the course of surgeries, medical procedures, then those types of things should be forwarded to the police department so that we can do follow-up investigation on that to see was that something different, was there more to it,” said Chief Mike Gute.
Whatever it was has changed Connor’s life forever and his mom says she just wants other families to be aware.
“I just hope that this doesn’t happen to anyone else,” said Moist.
The family's GoFundMe is here: https://www.gofundme.com/f/help-for-conors-recovery
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