A YouTuber has revisited the horrifying moment a rocket launcher exploded in their face, causing them serious injuries.
US Army veteran Adam Knowles has a YouTube channel called Ballistic High-Speed, and in a video posted last month he was demonstrating one of the lesser known dangers of rocket launchers, backblast.
Basically, if you fire a rocket launcher then there's going to be a big blast out the back of your launcher as hot gases are expelled.
If you've ever seen people firing a rocket launcher in a movie in an enclosed space or with someone standing right behind it then that's not realistic as the backblast would scorch whatever was there, and if the space was tight enough it'd likely roast the wielder too.
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Think of it this way, remember the car chase scene from The Dark Knight where The Joker pulls out a rocket launcher?
Look closely at that scene and you'll see that his henchmen open the door behind him as well as the one in front to clear the space for the backblast.
To demonstrate this, Adam was firing a series of rocket launchers and showing the blast from the back of the launcher to demonstrate just how dangerous it could be.
After a few shots from the launchers they started putting parts of ballistic dummies behind the launcher to demonstrate what would happen to a human caught in backblast.
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On their first shot they blew a hand clean off the arm and halfway across a field, and after a few more goes they stuck a ballistic head behind the launcher to show what damage it would take from the backblast of an RPG-7.
However, it was then that disaster struck as shortly after firing Adam was engulfed in smoke and flames, with his fellow YouTubers filming the weapon test immediately recognising they needed to call him an ambulance.
The same video featured an update reassuring viewers that Adam had survived but faced a 'very long recovery', and recently he featured in another video where he witnessed the footage of the incident.
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Slow-motion footage showed that for a split second things appeared to be going alright, with the rocket being propelled out of the front and the usual backblast.
However, the centre of the launcher then exploded in flames which engulfed Adam and blasted his helmet clean off his head.
The video is available to watch here, but be warned that the footage may be disturbing for some:
Adam suffered a broken jaw, a fractured skull, lacerations to his face and chest with several pieces of shrapnel in his body, long term nerve damage to his face and third degree burns on around 10 percent of his body.
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The incident and the treatments he has gone through after it have saddled Adam with a hospital bill of around $300,000 (£236,000) and a friend is trying to raise some money to help him out.
You can donate to help pay Adam's medical bills here.
Featured Image Credit: YouTube/Ballistic High-SpeedTopics: YouTube, Weird, US News