A Fourth of July fundraiser concert at a Gillette bar had ended, the music was over and patrons were beginning to head home when a firework exploded outside the entrance, blowing all the fingers off one man’s hand and injuring four other people.
"I tried to light a firework and throw it, it blew up instantly," Matthew Lynch said in a public apology he issued Monday about the mishap. "People got hurt and I feel like total shit for it.
“I’m sorry for being wreckless (sic) and injuring anyone."
The explosion happened around midnight early Saturday outside the Otherside Bar & Grill, where a concert raising money for a reproductive health clinic had wrapped up about 30 minutes earlier.
"I almost bled out and got life flighted to Billings,” Lynch wrote in his apology posted to Facebook. "I'm gonna be fine. I'm back home. I'm positive and feel OK, other than immense pain."
Bleeding Profusely
Otherside Bar & Grill owner Chris Ingersoll described the scene to Cowboy State Daily on Monday.
"There was a gentleman with an arm injury bleeding profusely,” he said.
Ingersoll said someone — possibly one of his bartenders — applied a tourniquet before first responders arrived.
Police officers were only about a block away and reached the scene within minutes to begin rendering aid, he said.
Ingersoll said he believes a man who had come over from another nearby bar ignited what appeared to be a large firecracker near the front entrance.
Surveillance cameras captured the incident, and the video has been turned over to investigators, he said.
Lynch also wrote that he lost all the fingers on his right hand, shattered the bones in his left hand, suffered burns, hearing damage and partial blindness.
Investigation Ongoing
Gillette Police Department Interim Chief Brent Wasson said the incident remains under investigation and no tickets or arrests have been made.
He also pushed back on early reports that the firework had been "launched" from the man's hand.
"There were no launching of fireworks," Wasson told Cowboy State Daily, cautioning against relying on initial reports while investigators continue determining exactly what happened.
Whether alcohol played a role remains unknown, he said.
According to Wasson, the person who was handling the firework suffered the most serious injuries and was transported by ambulance to the emergency room at Campbell County Health.
Two additional people were taken by ambulance but declined treatment at the hospital, while two others refused transport at the scene.
Ingersoll said he believed the man who was holding the explosive was out of the hospital and back in Gillette, which Lynch confirmed.
Messages left for Lynch weren’t returned by publication.
Explosion, Not Fire
Campbell County Fire Department Battalion Chief Cam Siplon said firefighters were dispatched to the bar for a report of an explosion.
By the time crews arrived, the Gillette Police Department and EMS personnel were already treating patients, he said. Firefighters found no fire or smoke, only a crowd gathered in the parking lot.
Based on the severity of the injuries, Siplon said he would expect the firework was something larger than a typical firecracker, although he emphasized that was not an official determination.
He also could not confirm who applied the tourniquet because EMS had already begun treating the injured man when firefighters arrived.
Siplon urged people to leave fireworks to professionals, noting that serious injuries are more common than many people realize.
"Our best bet is that fireworks should be left to the professionals," he said. "They tend to be better anyway, and not as many people get hurt that way.”
Kolby Fedore can be reached at kolby@cowboystatedaily.com.
