I am not a Veteran nor are any of my family members but I have seen PTSD and explosions first hand.
Disclaimer: this is going to be a long story but it will exemplify PTSD in the only way that I have ever seen. Also there are many things in this story that are just bad. Bad Practice, Bad judgement just all around bad. I know that and believe me everyone that was involved knows that but when the holes line up in the Swiss cheese of life accidents happen.
Back in February of 2003 a day after the Station Nightclub fire I was working construction at a site in MA (I'm going to leave the exact details nameless). It was a monday,the day after a large snowstorm had hit the metro west area. A buddy of mine and myself were working for a Construction company that used large (100 lb) propane tanks to run portable heaters to heat the site. They were set up outside the staging that was covered with a thick plastic sheeting. The hose ran inside the "tent" and to the heater. Before we had gone home for the weekend we had secured the tanks (there were 9 heating locations with 3 100 lb tanks chained together and secured to the staging. When we showed up on monday it was found that one of the sets of chains had slipped down the bottles it was attached to and one of the bottles had fell over and was buried in the snow. Monday morning was spent digging out and getting all of the bottles set up for the day's work. The friend of mine (who had only been working with us for two weeks) was in charge of setting the bottles up. He dug out the propane tank that had fallen and found that the valve assembly had become frozen. He decided it would be a good idea to take that tank to the wood working shed that was heated to thaw the valve out.
Couple of notes about this shed. It was built onsite for the finish carpenters to be able to work outside the house without having to deal with the weather. Inside there was all sorts of carpentry tools, nails and other supplies. It was heated with the same propane type heaters used on the rest of the job with one difference, the propane tanks were inside of the shed with the heater.
Back to the main story: My friend brings the frozen tank inside the shed and closes the door. At this point there really was no return from what was about to happen. I was working about 20 feet from the shed with my back to where the door was. 15 min have now elapsed and in that time the valve of the tank inside the shed was able to thaw. It turns out that when my friend had initially found the bottle he opened the valve. When it was found that the nozzle was frozen he neglected to close it. So for 15 min the shed had filled with propane but was unable to ignite because there just was not enough O2. When the door was opened by my friend it was catastrophic.
The initial explosion blew my friend toward me and caught him on fire, It blew the roof of the building about 40 feet in the air and the fireball was seen by someone in the prudential center (that's what the fire dept told us after the fact) I was thrown back into the building and suffered a separated shoulder. I was able to get up and put the fire out on my friend's face with the snow that was melting from the heat. At this point it was raining nails and saw blades and wood. I grabbed my friend and drug him out and around the corner to try to get away. This is where I seen Billy ( fake name ).
Billy was in Vietnam, he was stationed at a fire base (no I don;t know where, he never ever spoke about it but the owner gave us a little info about him). I guess the fire base had been attacked relentlessly and he was the only survivor from his unit.
Billy comes tearing out of the tent ( I mean directly through the side of the tent, no door, no knife to tear a hole I mean just comes right through the side) he barrels into me and falls down. In that instant that I look into his eyes I realize he is not there. He is back in Vietnam. He tells me that we have to go, we were not going to survive this and I needed to stick with him. He then gets up and just bolts, he runs into the woods tearing through the trees ripping his clothes and does not look back. I have never seen anyone look "Feral" before but he was by far "Feral" and more at that point. We did not hear from Billy for 2 weeks after that and his car stayed at the job site for those two weeks. I still to this day do not know where he went.
The story goes on with multiple propane tanks exploding and nails and tanks raining out of the sky for 10 min. Shrapnel through cars, the house on fire and so forth. It was like what I imagine war could be like.
My one experience with PTSD has shown me just how much it could effect someone. To touch on what the OP said, If my neighbor came up to me and asked me to stop lighting fireworks because of PTSD I would do so.
NOTE: All names have been changed, Yes I have pictures but I am not going to post them due to the fact that there is still litigation pending on the issue.
I know this was long but I felt I needed to talk about it. If I offended anyone I'm sorry, Also yes there was so many things done wrong here, I don't need you to point it out.
ALSO TLDR before anyone else can post it
![[rolleyes]](/xen/styles/default/xenforo/smilies.vb/042.gif "Roll Eyes [rolleyes]")
