Doctors in Minnesota attempting to operate on a man who accidentally shot a mortar round into his chest cavity were forced to call in a bomb squad when they realized the firework was still live.
Nick Beheng, 31, was shooting explosives out of a tube on Saturday when one of the rounds backfired and punctured a gaping hole in his chest, according to KARE 11. When doctors began working on his wound, they discovered that the round was still there and still active.
"I can't think of a case where someone was impacted by an unexploded device that penetrated that deeply into their chest cavity," Anoka County Sheriff's Cmdr. Paul Sommer told the station.
Beheng, of Linwood Township, was shooting the illegal fireworks around 9 p.m. near his home. Everything went wrong when he tried shooting two mortar rounds out of the same tube, Newscore reported.
"He put two devices in a tube and then held it up above his chest, which the tube was pointed directly at his chest," Sommer said. "It's as if somebody shot that device out of a cannon."
Beheng was rushed to the hospital where he's in now critical condition. But before doctors could operate on his torn heart and chest wound, they had to call in a bomb squad field agent to deem the round safe to remove, the Pioneer Press reported.