_{Thumbnail photo courtesy of GoFundMe}

Jason Turner didn’t have time to see what he grabbed before it exploded.

The father of seven and his girlfriend, Pamala Ganfield, were spending a post-holiday afternoon at the beach north of Crescent City. As they walked along the beach, Pamala picked up some trash, putting it in a pile to retrieve before they left, when something round and shiny caught Turner’s eye.

“We walked close to the water’s edge, there was a little bit of sand over it, but it was fairly close to where the water would get us,” he said. “To me, it looked like a lead sinker with something on it and I thought, ‘Oh, this is going to be cool,’ and that’s the last thing that happened.”

Two weeks after the July 5 explosion at Point St. George forced doctors at U.C. Davis Medical Center to amputate his left hand, Turner is back home in Klamath. He says he’s slowly getting used to his new life, including figuring out how to maneuver a game controller to play Fortnite, but he has a long road of surgeries, doctors visits, occupational and physical therapies ahead of him.