PITTSBURGH (KDKA) — A girl from Sharon Pennsylvania is recovering from severe burns after a firecracker exploded in her hand.

She told KDKA’s Lynne Hayes Freeland she is speaking out in hopes that other kids learn a lesson from her mistake.

Ten-year-old Barbara Budetich and her father George of Sharon in Mercer County have a warning.

“Don’t light firecrackers or lighters or matches until you’re 21,” Barbara Budetich said.

Her face has burn marks all over it, as well as her arm, chest and she has severe damage to her hand.

Firefighters were called to the Budetich’s home on Quimby street this week.

Barbra was in the basement when she says she found what looked like a candle and a lighter.

She says she lit it– not knowing it was a firework.

It blew up in her hand.

“Demari is right in the middle, behind the stairs, behind that thing I tried to throw it over that way but I couldn’t because he was right there and then it blew up,” she said.

Her friend ran out of the house after the firework exploded.

Her sisters suffered minor burns to their faces.

“It shook the building, let’s put it that way,” Budetich’s father George said. “I compare it to a quarter-stick of dynamite went off in her hand.”

George says he came across the firework as he was cleaning out boxes in the basement.

He never thought something like this could happen.

But for firefighters, it’s something they see all the time, something they say is preventable.

“Parents, you have got to be responsible,” Sharon Fire Chief Terence Whalen said. “’Cause children are curious. Just out of curiosity they will go after these things and there is just something about fire that is intriguing.”

Keeping matches and lighters out of the hands of children is one of the lessons being taught at area schools, during this national fire prevention week.

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