MO teens thought it was a firework — until it went off. Lost hands, sight among injuries
Three Fridays ago, about 40 miles northeast of Kansas City, a group of friends gathered to catch up after having not seen each other in a while.
They figured they could let off a few fireworks before heavy storms came in. And then just hang out and relax at a friend’s house in Richmond, Missouri.
What happened instead on April 17 altered the lives of everyone there, and left two of the friends — Carter Grabowski, of Excelsior Springs, and Preston Sloan, of Lawson — wondering if they would even survive.
All because one of the “fireworks” someone had given them to set off ended up being what they now describe as a hand-made explosive.
As the two focus on healing, local and state authorities are investigating the incident and the nature of the explosive. One remaining question is who made it and for what purpose?
“We didn’t even light it when it blew up in my best friend’s hand,” Sloan said in a phone interview from his hospital bed last week. “The flame was not even lit. ... They said it could have been like static electricity. They don’t know for sure what set it off.
“We didn’t have time to run. There was nothing we could do.”
Missouri teens severely injured
People across town could hear the explosion, the friends’ families said, as panicked teens and observers, who couldn’t believe what they were seeing, called for help.
Sloan, 19, who was in trade school when it happened and had been scheduled to graduate later this month, ruptured his eardrums and suffered severe trauma to his hands, including the loss of a thumb. His most severe injuries were to his eyes, which were pierced with shrapnel. He’s regained some sight in his left eye, but his right one struggles to heal after nearly three weeks.
Carter, who turns 18 this month, also ruptured his eardrums and shrapnel wounds riddle his body. He lost both of his hands.
“The surgeon told me that these are injuries you see in war zones,” said Jamie Grabowski, Carter’s mom.
Mike O’Connell, a spokesperson with the Missouri Department of Public Safety, said the Richmond Police Department requested the division of fire safety help with the “explosion case.”
“This is an open, ongoing investigation,” O’Connell said, and the division “has no further comment at this time.”
Jamie Grabowski said the first firework the teens were given to set off appeared to be normal and friends said it was a “whistle one.” The second one, the one that exploded in Carter’s hands, was round with paper around it and about the size of a baseball. They didn’t know that it “had shrapnel and stuff in it,” she said.
“Carter said it looked like just one that you buy from the store, like a mortar,” Grabowski said. “We’re trying to figure out, like, ‘Who the heck made it?’”
The two families know the obstacles they face are massive. Carter’s aunt, Bree Ann Ladd, created a GoFundMe account to help with expenses in the road ahead. Nearly $8,500 has been raised so far.
“These boys are alive — and we are beyond thankful for that — but their lives will never be the same,” Ladd wrote in the fundraiser. “... Please keep Carter and Preston in your prayers. Pray for healing, strength, peace and for the doctors caring for them.”
‘Is he alive?’
The weather forecast for that Friday afternoon called for severe storms across the Kansas City region. Schools were closing early and many businesses were calling it a day as early as noon or 1 p.m.
Cindy Teegarden looked at her Life 360 app on her cellphone to see where son Preston was.
“I could see that he was in Richmond,” Teegarden said. “And I told him, I said, ‘Preston, you know they’re calling for really bad weather. … I just need to make sure that you’re safe.”
Teegarden said her son assured her he was and that he and his friends had a safe place to go if they needed one.
“He said, ‘Yeah, Mom, I got this,’” she said. “‘I’m good. I’m in Richmond.’”
Later that afternoon, Carter’s mom got a call from her son’s best friend.
“He was hysterically screaming that Carter had blown off his hands,” she said, adding that she tried to calm him. “And he’s like, ‘No, they’re gone! Like, he literally has no hands.’”
Jamie Grabowski asked if her son was alive. The friend said he was, and Carter’s mom then told him, ‘We’re good. We’re fine.’
She and her husband caught up to the ambulance that her son was in. As tornado sirens went off and hail came down, they still didn’t know the full extent of his injuries. She later learned that her son knew they were on the way to the hospital to see him.
“Carter looked out the back window (of the ambulance) and said, ‘That’s my mom behind us.’”
Sloan remembers people yelling after the explosion and hearing Carter holler about losing his hands. “I got on the ambulance and told the ambulance lady, I was screaming, ‘Tell my mom, I love her. Tell my friends I love them — and goodbye.’”
After the explosion
Soon after the Grabowskis got to Children’s Mercy Hospital, the surgery team was ready for Carter. His parents had a short time to talk with him.
“I just went to him, and I was like, ‘Carter ...’ and he’s like, ‘Oh, I’m sorry, I’m sorry,’” she remembers her son saying. “And he’s like, ‘My hands are gone. ‘
“I said, ‘Buddy, don’t be sorry about anything.‘”
“And he said, ‘Okay, I love you, but I hurt and I gotta go.’”
Carter has had three surgeries so far and is expected to have another one this summer, his mom said. After that he can be fitted for prosthetics.
For Preston, the pain has been overwhelming at times. Teegarden stayed by his side the two weeks he was in the hospital, leaving only once to get a heating pad and a pair of headphones.
In those first two days after the incident, Preston was on a ventilator. Teegarden said he kept “raising his hands” and would mouth things like, ‘I love you, Mom,’ and ‘I’m so sorry.’ She told Carter’s mom about it when she came to check on how he was doing.
“And then it dawned on me,” Teegarden said. “Because Preston couldn’t see, he could only hear, and he could hear Carter screaming, ‘My hands are gone. My hands are gone.‘
“I told Jamie, I said, ‘Oh my God, he thinks his hands got blown off too.’”
Teegarden said she gently touched each of her son’s fingertips, “the ones I could touch without causing severe pain.“
“And I was like, ‘See Bubby, your hands are still there,’” she said. “He started crying. It broke my heart because that’s what he was trying to tell me while he was on the ventilator, ‘Do I have my hands?’ That’s why he kept raising them up and down.”
‘Going to heal together’
Late last month, Carter — who was sent home from the hospital before he eventually had to go back for another surgery — surprised his friend with a visit to the University of Kansas Hospital.
The two didn’t talk much about the specifics of what happened. Because that’s “very traumatic,” Sloan said, and still hard to relive.
“We just try to talk about the good stuff,” he said. “And try to talk about how good we’re going to do from now on and how we’re going to heal together as friends.”
Then earlier this week, Sloan, who was released from the hospital, was able to visit Carter.
“Preston is just so relieved to see Carter is OK,” Grabowski said.
Both moms say their sons are leaning on each other.
“It’s the kind of friendship,” Teegarden said, “that helps you heal.”
