Boy, 3, is burned in fireworks accident
LEOMINSTER -- Two stray Roman candles hit a toddler during a Fourth of July celebration at a lakeside house in Leominster Friday evening, sending him to the hospital with second- and third-degree burns on his hands and legs, according to Leominster police.
The 3-year-old's father, Sean Maloney, 37, of Merrimack, N.H., could face charges ranging from using fireworks, which is illegal in Massachusetts, to felony child endangerment, said Police Lieutenant Michael Goldman.
The department will discuss possible charges with the district attorney tomorrow, he said.
An ambulance was called to the house on Lake Shore Drive, along Lake Samoset, just before 10 p.m. Friday with reports of a toddler burned by fireworks, Goldman said.
The child was taken to UMass Memorial Medical Center in Worcester, he said.
The boy was sitting in a swing at the house, which Goldman said the family uses as a summer getaway, while his father lighted the Roman candles on a boat dock and positioned them in a bucket.
The bucket tipped backward and the fireworks struck the child, he said.
Police would not release the child's name.
At the home yesterday, about a half-dozen people sitting on a side deck declined to comment on the accident.
The house is one of several summer homes in a quiet area along the shore of Lake Samoset.
A neighbor, Jack Beaulac, said he saw the ambulance Friday night and initially thought it might have responded to a break-in.
Beaulac said he heard on the radio that a child had been injured.
He said the family is "very, very nice, a neighbor you'd hope to have."
"Right now I feel very bad for the parents," he said, "because this is something that will stay with him [the father] the rest of his life."
He added that others on the lake were using fireworks Friday night as well.
Stephen D. Coan, the state fire marshal, said that based on what he knew, the accident was preventable.
"It really pained me because it was an example of someone who didn't heed the message of safety," Coan said.
"This child didn't need to be injured."
State fire officials held a news conference the week before the holiday and stressed safety, urging people not to set off fireworks, as people do every year, Coan said.
The accident also highlighted the problems facing authorities in controlling an influx of fireworks into Massachusetts from stands along the border of New Hampshire, a state where sales are legal, Coan said. "They're there to entice them to buy."
