Family burned in firework fiasco at Emma Lake

A festive display on Canada Day didn’t quite go as planned at Emma Lake.

Andrew Fitch said he and his family were vacationing over the long weekend at their cottage in the area.

“My four-year-old finally had enough energy to stay up until 11 o’clock to see them, so we thought we’d take her to her first fireworks,” Fitch said.

Fitch said he stayed behind with their dog while his wife and daughter went to see the show on the beach. He recalled hearing fireworks explode for about five minutes, then stop.

“I thought it was odd that it was done already, but who am I to know?” he said.

His family soon returned, with his wife running and carrying their daughter. Fitch said he asked them how the fireworks were and didn’t receive a response. Then he noticed they were both upset, with tears in their eyes.

His wife’s pants also appeared to be singed.

Fitch said there was an incident while the fireworks were being set off. The fireworks, he said, weren’t set up properly in the sand when they were lit, and went off while pointed in the wrong direction, towards the onlookers.

“They ended up losing tilt and shooting towards the crowd,” he said.

There were some burns on Fitch’s daughter’s foot and his wife’s legs had some bruising and burning from where she’d been hit by a projectile, he said. Their blanket was also singed and damaged.

Fitch says his cousin’s children, who were also at the fireworks that night, experienced ringing in their ears afterwards.

When he went outside, Fitch said he saw an off-duty paramedic checking some people out.

Jarett Taylor with Lakeland District Protective Services said they did not receive any reports about the incident. He said the Lakeland District did not authorize or co-ordinate the fireworks display in any way.

Brent MacDonald, president of the Sunnyside Cottage Owners Association, said his group was also unaware of the Canada Day incident and are not conducting an investigation.

Fitch said the man who lit the projectiles came to apologize to their family for the accident the next day.

“(It was) nothing catastrophic by any means, but (there was) a lot of trauma,” Fitch shared.

For a few days after the incident, he said his wife was a little jumpy around a controlled fire they were enjoying as a family.

He said his daughter is doing OK now, days later, as long as they don’t mention the incident. The real test, Fitch said, will be the next fireworks show they attend.