Video shows chaos of fireworks incident at Lincoln-Sudbury football game

SUDBURY, Mass. — Video provided to Boston 25 News from Sudbury TV shows the chaos that resulted after someone set off a series of fireworks at Lincoln-Sudbury High School in Sudbury Friday night as the football team took on Fitchburg.

Announcers can be heard referencing the pandemonium as a series of loud and powerful fireworks were set off by someone towards the end of the game. Fitchburg parent Richard Dudek was in the stands that night.

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“They were the full-size mortars; you seem them in the sky with the stars; that was happening on the track in the middle of the football team,” Dudek said.

He told Boston 25 News he was hit by one of the fireworks as he jumped from the bleachers.

“The first thing I noticed is just the impact on my back. I got hit in the back and all the explosions started. And being in the military – I had some stuff happened and it just brought me back to my past experiences in the military. I was in a haze,” Dudek said.

Dudek is a veteran and said the events that played out at the game have left him traumatized.

“The past two days I was in my room by myself just trying to get through everything that got kicked back up to the forefront from my past,” Dudek said. “It put a lot of people there in a tough place. Things could have been a lot worse than they were, there was an infant directly in front of us.”

“With about nine minutes left in the game, five to six fireworks were apparently launched from the wooded area between Concord Road and behind the visiting spectators’ bleachers,” Lincoln-Sudbury Superintendent Bella Wong wrote in a letter to the L-S community. “Parts of the fireworks sprayed or landed in the visitor bleachers, onto the field and into the air overhead. It was a shocking experience for athletes, officials and spectators alike, which included young children. Many individuals, of any age, were frightened, some were extremely so.

“As well as being frightened about one’s safety it also caused some of our visitors to wonder if they were the intentional targets. I apologize on the behalf of our community to that of the Fitchburg school community that [Friday] night’s events caused any of them to feel at all that that would be a possibility. While I do not want to at all lessen the seriousness of what occurred, I do want to assure the Fitchburg community that I firmly believe that what the individual or individuals may have intended, that this was not the case. If upon investigation this proves to be otherwise, [then] a fuller apology will be forthcoming. At the very least I do apologize that your experience on our fields has at all caused you to feel this way.”

No injuries were reported, Art Reilly, director of athletics and activities at Lincoln Sudbury Regional High School, said in a statement to Boston 25 News.

“This extremely inappropriate and dangerous situation is being taken very seriously. LS does not condone this type of behavior and finds it unacceptable,” he said.

“We sincerely apologize to anyone that was adversely affected by this incident, and are thankful that no one was seriously injured.”

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