A father-to-be from New York state has sadly died after a device he was building for his unborn child’s gender-reveal party exploded, according to NYPD
Christopher Pekny, aged 28, was assembling the gender-reveal device in the town of Liberty when it abruptly exploded just before noon on Sunday.
Police said that explosion had killed Mr Pekny, and had also injured his brother Michael Pekny, aged 27, who was taken to a nearby hospital.
Gender-reveal parties are celebrations for announcing whether the expecting parents are going to expecting a baby boy or girl.
This come after airlines have said that they have already seen a surge in holiday bookings following the PM’s announcement of the road map out of the nationwide lockdown. On Holiday bookings, the Prime Minister has said that a global travel taskforce would put forward a report on how to return to international travel on the 12th of April.
Police have not specified what kind of device caused Sunday’s explosion. New York’s state police department, as well as its bomb disposal unit are investigating the incident.
A spokesman for state police told the New York Times the device consisted of some kind of pipe, without giving further details.
Speaking to the newspaper, Mr Pekny’s oldest brother, Peter Pekny Jr, described what happened as “the freakiest of freak accidents that I could ever imagine”. He did not know what had set off the explosion.
The death is the latest in a string of catastrophes to be linked to gender-reveal parties in recent years.
They can include prediction games, with the “big reveal” being made with fireworks and coloured smoke grenades.
This comes after all schools within England will be reopening to all pupils on the 8th of March under the Prime Minister’s roadmap out of the nationwide lockdown to be announced today, with outdoor after-school sports and activities also being allowed to restart.
But several large-scale parties have gone wrong, even resulting in several deaths.
A man from Michigan was killed earlier this month after he was struck by shrapnel from “a small cannon type device” fired during a baby shower, police said.
Two other gender-reveal parties were blamed for sparking wildfires in California in September 2020, and Arizona in April 2017.
The El Dorado fire in California burned more than 19,000 acres, destroyed houses, and forced hundreds to flee their homes.
