David Khedher, 25, a police officer from Vaxjo, Sweden, was in New York with a childhood friend. He said he has a special feeling for America's Independence Day because his mother had lived through Poland's Solidarity movement that led to democracy and his father is Iraqi-born.
"I'm celebrating your Fourth of July because Americans really know how to do it," he said.
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Fireworks explode over the United States Capitol dome and Washington Monument on Independence Day in Washington July 4, 2009. [Agencies] |
The Intrepid Sea, Air & Space Museum — a retired World War II aircraft carrier — hosted the live NBC broadcast of the spectacle, featuring the cast of Broadway's "West Side Story" and other stars. The New York Pops orchestra sat on the front open deck of the Intrepid playing a medley of patriotic music and new numbers composed for the occasion.
The nationwide festivities, though, were not without some calamity.
In North Carolina, authorities said a truckload of fireworks exploded on Ocracoke Island off the coast, killing two workers and critically injuring three. And in central Florida, officials said one person was killed in a lightning strike at a Fourth of July gathering in Lakeland and at least 18 others were taken to hospitals.
In northern Indiana, more than a dozen people were taken to local hospitals when a pedestrian bridge over a lake collapsed as crowds were leaving a fireworks show in Merrillville. Dive teams helped with the rescue. In western Pennsylvania, a Mercer County man was flown to a hospital when an explosive blew up in his hands and also caught his house on fire.
