Firework Goes Through Omaha Woman's Roof - FOX 42: Omaha News, Sports and Weather; kptm.com |

Nicole Ebat

OMAHA(KPTM)--Some of the bangs and booms from this year's Independence Day might have seemed a bit close for some, but for one Omaha woman, the fireworks truly hit too close to home: one went straight through her roof.

"I was lying on the couch and about 9:30 [p.m.] we heard this big boom explosion type thing," said Connie McElderry. "The house shook and we heard something fall."

That something turned out to be pieces of her roof.

Right after the explosion she had feared the worst.

"I got this whiff of a really strong sulfuric smell and I thought the house was on fire," she said.

Thankfully it wasn't, but when she walked into an upstairs bedroom with her husband and saw debris scattered all over a corner of the room and the floor. She says only one thing was going through her mind.

"Oh my gosh, what happened? You know, we were just shocked," she said.

She called the fire department just to make sure nothing would explode or ignite later. That's when she found out it was a 3mm artillery shell that went through her roof.

She didn't like fireworks before this experience, but now she says she almost wants to work actively to get them banned--at least the ones that go up in the air.

"People are careless and things get destroyed and they're dangerous and people get hurt," she said. "This could have been a lot worse had someone been in a different location in the house and come in and fallen on someone. I just think it could have been a lot more serious."

Despite McElderry's experience, the city says Omaha was mostly safe on the 4th of July. The fire department says there were only 25 fires caused by fireworks.

Fewer children were hurt too. Officials at the Children's Hospital and Medical Center said they only saw three children on the holiday. Most were for minor burns on the hands.

Last year, the center saw nine children with firework-related injuries.

Officials say together, the University of Nebraska Medical Center and Creighton Hospital treated 16 people during the time fireworks were on sale this year.