An Iowa woman was killed this weekend after being struck by shrapnel from an exploding gender reveal, police say.
The incident took place on Saturday afternoon in the town of Knoxville, which is close to 40 miles southeast of Des Moines. As the USA Today reported, the 56-year-old woman was severely injured the explosion sent shrapnel that struck her body. She was pronounced dead by the time police arrived on the scene.
Gender reveals have become a popular way for pregnant women to share with friends and family the gender of their unborn baby. These parties have often taken on extravagant measures, with some using explosions that give off clouds of blue or pink smoke to show what gender the baby will be.
This is not the first gender reveal party to take a tragic turn, however. In Arizona, a border agent who held a gender reveal in a rural area ended up sparking a fire that went on to burn 47,000 acres. As The Inquisitr reported, agent Dennis Dickey was ordered to pay $220,000 after pleading guilty to a federal charge of starting a fire without a proper permit.
The fines included $100,000 in restitution along with another $120,000 that will come in the form of $500 monthly payments for the next 20 years. Dickey was also ordered to serve five years of probation.
Dickey had rigged the explosion using Tannerite, a highly explosive substance designed to light and burn after being shot. The target was then filled with colorful powder to show the gender of the unborn baby, but the explosion went wrong and sparked a wildfire.
The fire would go on to burn for a full week, creating $8.2 million in damages.
U.S. Attorney John Walsh said that the incident should be a reminder to people to act responsibly when they are outdoors.
“The reality is you don’t want to have on your conscious [sic] starting a huge forest fire,” he said, via Colorado Public Radio .
“You don’t want on your conscious [sic] or frankly the possibility of bearing legal responsibility for a forest fire that once it gets going ends up burning houses, burning businesses burning not only the forest but puts firefighters at risk. And God forbid that someone actually gets injured or killed.”
It was not clear if police were investigating the Iowa gender reveal explosion that left a woman dead this weekend. Police have not yet released the identity of the woman who was killed in the blast.