LONGVIEW, Wash. — New Year’s Eve celebration turned to tragedy when a man lost his hand after picking up a homemade explosive thrown toward him in Longview, Washington.
Longview Capt. John Reeves said Corey Bartlette threw a tennis ball filled with explosives around midnight Sunday in the direction of a 49-year-old transient man.
Reeves said the man picked up the ball and “his hand was blown off.”
Bartlette was booked on an assault charge.
Bartlette’s father called the device a homemade firework used during a New Year’s Eve celebration.
He said the ball bounced toward the victim, and was not intended to hit a person.
