Youth, 18, injured by fireworks

The Daily Inter Lake

A Whitefish teenager was critically hurt when he and a friend allegedly blew up mailboxes with fireworks on East Edgewood Drive.

At about 12:30 a.m. Tuesday, someone called for help at the corner of Haskill Basin Road and East Edgewood Drive. Ian Reynolds, 18, was bleeding so profusely a witness thought it he had been in a car accident.

Whitefish Ambulance, sheriff's deputies, the Highway Patrol, and Whitefish police were called.

Reynolds and Charles How, 18, reportedly ignited the fireworks in mailboxes set in a heavy stone masonry structure. Reynolds reportedly was hit by flying pieces of metal that broke his femur and his pelvis in two places and severed several arteries. He was taken to Kalispell Regional Medical Center.

A sheriff's deputy ticketed How at the scene with criminal mischief and underage possession of alcohol. Reynolds' citations for the same offenses reportedly were received by his mother at the hospital.

Owners of the mailboxes estimated damages at $5,000.