Columbia, SC (WLTX) -- A night of fun lighting off fireworks turned into a disaster for one mother.
Leah Mccleskey and her family were at Hand Middle School celebrating the Fourth of July. Her husband, Jonathan Mccleskey, said he heard a loud explosion and his wife took a direct hit from the fireworks leaving her with third degree burns. She is hospitalized tonight at the Augusta Burn Center.
Her husband said if the explosion would have happened any sooner, their four-year-old son would have been in her lap. So now they are urging others to be more aware.
"Everybody just needs to be safe and careful with these fireworks. I mean until you seen somebody that's been blown up by one of these things especially these mortar shells that they use with the launching tubes and you see the amount of damage that can be done to a human being with one of these things. You have no idea how much damage can be done," Jonathan Mccleskey said. "It's mind boggling and sitting here looking at my wife in the hospital today, it's pretty terrifying to think if it had been a child, a small child that had gotten hit by this it would have been a lot worse and my wife's situation is pretty tragic and pretty horrible."
The family would like to identify who shot off the fireworks. A friend that was with them also suffered minor injuries.