'He kept throwing them': Firecracker attack victim tells story

By Jessica Stith
of The Daily Times Staff

"Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom."

"I could feel it popping me and catching me on fire at the same time."

A 36-year-old Maryville woman described the fireworks that caught her on fire and badly burned her after three males chucked the explosives into her vehicle on Saturday while she was on West Fulton Street in Alcoa. A 40-year-old female passenger in her vehicle was treated for superficial burns after the incident.

The women's identities are being withheld due to the violent nature of the crime.

The 36-year-old woman suffered from 2nd and 3rd degree burns throughout the back side of her lower body. She was taken to the burn center at Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville, where she will be treated for at least several weeks.

She told her story during a phone interview with The Daily Times on Tuesday as she lay in her hospital bed. She could recall most of the incident, although she said her memory was a bit fuzzy during the interview due to pain medications that she was taking. She said she was going through a tough recovery and said "the pain is not easy to deal with."

"I'm injured pretty bad," she said. "I can't hardly walk or move my arms or my legs."

She was alone in her hospital room, at a hospital several hours away from her family. She said her father and sister had come to visit her earlier.

Looking for cousin

The woman said that she was looking for her cousin in the Hall community at about 2:30 a.m. Saturday where she had dropped him off on Howe Street. She couldn't find him there, so she went to look for him on West Fulton Street, where she said he lived.

"I laid on the horn down by his house," she said.

She said three males approached her vehicle while on West Fulton Street. She said they asked her and her passenger if they "wanted to buy something," and she said she told them that she was just trying to find someone.

"They had told me to hit a block and come back and 'we'll go look for him,'" she said.

When she came back, she said they acted like they didn't know who the male was that she was trying to find. She said they then asked who she was and she told them.

"(The males) pulled out those firecrackers," she said. "I don't know if they already had them lit because it happened so fast."

She said one of the suspects began hurling the firecrackers in the passenger side window, but she thought it was a prank at first.

"They were shooting off those bottle rockets, into my floorboard at my seat," she said. "It was like a retaliation on me. And he kept throwing them. He just kept throwing them and throwing them. I was scared to get out. I was scared they had a gun out there."

'Already on fire'

The woman said one of the males then came around to her side of the vehicle and threw a large "M-80" type of firework in the car. She said the fire, which had already started, got worse.

"I was already on fire before they put the M-80 in there," she said. "When they put that big firework in there, I knew the only thing I could do was roll and try to get to my mother's house."

She said her vehicle was rolling forward as she unbuckled her seat belt and opened her door. She jumped out of the car as it was still moving.

"I jumped out hands first and I just rolled," she said.

The woman said she couldn't run because she was "burnt up," but walked fast to her mother-in-law's residence on West Fulton Street. When she got to the residence, she said she realized she was still on fire and began tearing her clothes off.

The suspects were described to Alcoa police officers by the victims as three black males between the ages of 15 and 20 years old. They said one of the males had dreadlocks and the other two had short hair.

The 36-year-old woman said they all looked familiar to her, but she did not know their names.

Anyone who has information on the suspects or the incident should immediately call Alcoa Police Detective Kris Sanders at 380-4964 or the Alcoa Police Department 24-hour crime hot line at 380-4715.