A Northwest Side man who went to check on a piece of fireworks that did not initially explode was killed when it blew up in front of him Thursday night in an alley in the Hermosa neighborhood.
About 10 p.m., Earl Lory, 34, was in the 3000 block of North Kostner Avenue when he suffered trauma to the body while handling the piece of fireworks, Chicago police and the Cook County medical examiner’s office said.
Neighbors said the alley is known for holiday displays featuring large explosive devices. One resident saw what she described as a “footlong mortar tube” lying next to Lory’s body after the accident.
Lory, who lived less than a mile away in the Belmont Cragin neighborhood, died accidentally from head injuries, according to the Cook County medical examiner’s office, which performed an examination Friday.
The accident happened over a violent holiday period in which fireworks also sparked at least 13 fires — more than on any Fourth of July in at least the last two decades.
Lory’s family confirmed to the Sun-Times he had gone to look at a piece of fireworks that hadn’t exploded and was hit while checking it.
Jennifer Peralta, who lives on the opposite side of the alley where Lory and others had been setting off the fireworks, didn’t witness the incident but came home around 2 a.m. to see police, the body and the “footlong mortar tube” in the alley. Initially she said she thought the scene was the result of a shoot-out, adding she “wouldn’t have been surprised.”
Peralta said in the more than 12 years she’d been in the neighborhood, people had often set off large fireworks in that alley for the Fourth of July. Another neighbor, who didn’t want to be identified, said in the 18 years he had lived there, he had sometimes seen people in the alley setting fireworks off on their abdomens.
Barbara Scott, Peralta’s next-door neighbor, viewed some of the aftermath while walking her dog Bailey Friday morning.
Scott also didn’t see the accident, and said she had been focused on comforting Bailey, who was frightened by the fireworks. Scott said she was shocked that she hadn’t heard any screams and never understood the big explosives people tended to opt for on the holiday.
“I feel bad for whoever was with him and for his family,” Scott said. “I love the fireworks, and I love the colors. It’s just unfortunate people aren’t conscious of how deadly they can be. … They’re nothing to play with.”
Other neighbors requested that their properties be cleaned, and firefighters responded, cleaning the pavement, garages and homes along the alley.
In an unrelated incident about an hour later on the other end of the city, a 31-year-old man was badly injured by fireworks in Roseland, police said. He was taken to the University of Chicago Medical Center where his condition had stabilized after suffering “severe damage” to his left hand from fireworks in the 9400 block of South Wabash Avenue.
Contributing: David Struett
