By By KEVIN SCOTT CUTLER
Lifestyles & Features Editor
What was to be an old-fashioned celebration of America’s birthday turned tragic the morning of July 4 when fireworks exploded unexpectedly in the Hyde County community of Ocracoke Island.
The fatal incident is the No. 7 story on the Washington Daily News’ list of Top 10 local stories for 2009.
A truck in which the fireworks were stored exploded in the parking lot of the North Carolina Center for the Advancement of Teaching campus overlooking Silver Lake harbor. The fireworks were to have been the grand finale of a day-long celebration.
Five victims — all employees of Melrose South Pyrotechnics, a Catawba, S.C.-based company hired to oversee Ocracoke’s fireworks show — were in or around the truck when the explosion occurred.
Four died either at the scene or after being transported via helicopters to hospitals on the mainland. Those who died of their injuries were Mark Hill, Terry Holland, Charles Kirkland Jr. and Lisa Simmons, all of the Goldsboro area. The fifth victim, Martez Holland, was treated at N.C. Memorial Hospital in Chapel Hill after suffering severe burns over 20 percent of his body.
“There were a few little explosions and then just a big explosion,” said Jesse Spencer, a member of Ocracoke’s volunteer fire department. “We didn’t wait to get paged to go out — we knew something bad had happened.”
Spencer said the truck and a car parked nearby were on fire when he arrived on the scene, and several “spot fires” were burning in a grassy area near the NCCAT building, formerly the island’s Coast Guard station.
One of the fire department’s trucks and several volunteers were at the scene at the time of the explosion, Spencer said. As a precaution, they were wetting down the area where the fireworks were to be set up.
“All of our fire and rescue personnel and those from the park service were here, and we had a huge turnout of doctors and nurses who were vacationing on the island,” Spencer said. “They were very helpful. Everybody pulled together, everybody took care of business.”
Two local residents, David Warren and Joyce Reynolds, were transported off-island by Dare County EMS after they were overcome at the scene by smoke inhalation and exhaustion, Spencer said. Warren is a paramedic on the island, and Reynolds is pastor of Ocracoke United Methodist Church. Both were treated and released.
In an update, on Dec. 11 the North Carolina Department of Labor issued nine citations and fines of more than $40,000 against Melrose South Pyrotechnics. Officials told The Associated Press that the company let its employees keep a cigarette pack and lighter near the truck full of fireworks.
The company was fined for having the workers use the back of the truck to put fuses into the 680 pounds of fireworks, for having a motorcycle battery inside the truck and for using steel tools that could create a spark.