Fireworks Kills One Athlete, Hurts Three : Olympics: Brad Yim, U.S. paddler from Honolulu who did not make team, dies of head injuries from blast.

A 21-year-old Honolulu man was killed near here early Sunday morning in a fireworks accident in which a member of the U.S. canoeing team also was injured.

Brad Yim, a paddler who did not make the U.S. team but was here as a spectator with the canoeing and kayaking team, died of massive head injuries on a beach at Castelldefels, 12 miles south of Barcelona. The flatwater canoe events were held at Castelldefels.

According to Craig Bohnert, spokesman for U.S. canoeing and kayaking, Yim and other members of the canoeing and kayaking group here for the Olympics, including U.S. canoe team member Wyatt Jones, lighted a “professional grade pyrotechnic device” on the beach at about 1 a.m. local time Sunday. Instead of taking off, the device exploded on the ground.

Jones, 22, of Honolulu, who had been eliminated Thursday in the semifinals of the C-2 1,000 canoe event, suffered a ruptured right eardrum.

He was treated at a hospital and released to return home on a charter flight this morning with other members of the U.S. Olympic team.

Also injured were Nalu Kukea and Eric Chua, both of Honolulu and both members of the group, but neither on the U.S. team. Both suffered ruptured eardrums and burns and cuts to their heads, necks and torsos. They were also treated and released at a local hospital.

Bohnert did not know how the fireworks were acquired by the group.

Bernard Morris, 49, of Scotia, N.Y., died Sunday in Barcelona after seeing his son Jason win a silver medal in the 172-pound class in judo July 30. Cause of death was believed to be a heart attack.

It was the second fatality involving a parent of a U.S. Olympic athlete during the Games. Peter Karnaugh, the father of swimmer Ron Karnaugh of Maplewood, N.J., suffered a fatal heart attack while watching the opening ceremony July 25.

Nijole Medvedeva, a Lithuanian woman long jumper who finished fourth, was the fifth Barcelona competitor to test positive for banned substances, IOC officials said. None of the five won medals, and four were from track and field.

At the 1988 Seoul Games, 10 athletes tested positive, and Canadian sprinter Ben Johnson and two Bulgarian weightlifters were stripped of their gold medals.

Juan Antonio Samaranch, president of the International Olympic Committee, said he would like to see pro athletes from baseball, cycling and soccer in the Atlanta Games in 1996, but not professional boxers. “We want the best athletes in the Olympic Games,” Samaranch said. “(But) professional boxing and Olympic boxing are completely different.”

Material from the Associated Press is included in this story.