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A US Army veteran and YouTuber had a missile rocket launcher blow up in his hands during a ballistic test-gone-wrong, leaving him with a fractured skull and horrific burns.

Adam Knowles and his team at the popular weapons-testing YouTube channel Ballistic High-Speed were shooting a video in November demonstrating the effects of backblast – the release of hot gasses from the back of a rocket launcher — when the stunt ended in what one of the crew members described as a “catastrophic failure.”

On the final shot of the day on Nov. 13, as Knowles mounted an RPG-7 launcher onto his shoulder to show what would happen to a ballistic dummy’s head positioned directly behind him in an open field, the weapon exploded, engulfing him in flames.

The devastating impact of the blast ripped the helmet and goggles Knowles was wearing clean off his head and knocked him unconscious to the ground.