WARNING: The following story may contain graphic images.

SPRINGDALE, Ark. (KNWA) — A Springdale teen is recovering after a firework exploded in his hand. Now he’s making sure it doesn’t happen to others.

Earlier this month, Landon Freeman, 18, and his friends were playing in a firework war. It’s an activity he says they’ve done before.

He was holding a mortar tube and mistakenly placed the firework in backwards.

Instead of shooting forward, it shot backwards, and exploded in this hand.

“It was just a bright flash of light, and as soon as it went off I knew that I blew up my hand. I felt the blood on my leg, and I was like, we have to go to the hospital right now,” Freeman said.

“I was in shock. I couldn’t feel my hand right away, and I couldn’t feel these two fingers right away, and I can’t still feel these fingers,” Freeman said.

He would be life-flighted to Little Rock, undergoing two surgeries. He stayed in the hospital for 5 days.

“My wrist is shattered at the moment right now, so they just have a spacer in there keeping it all together in rods and pins,” Freeman said.

His plans to attend college in the fall just got a little bit harder. “It’s definitely going to affect me with writing and typing.”

The accident proves just how powerful and dangerous fireworks can be.

Additional trips to Little Rock and at least one more surgery will be in his future.

His doctor says he should get full movement back in a year.

The message he has for others, “Hopefully people can learn from my mistakes and they can see me, and what I’m going to have to deal with for the next couple of years. Hopefully this changes their mind about doing something near Fourth of July.”