NYC man dies 5 days after opening exploding package
The man opened the mysterious package on Friday and died four days later.
— -- George Wray, a 73-year-old man from Queens, New York, who was burned after opening a package that exploded in his hands on Friday, succumbed to his injuries and died, according to a report from WABC-NY.
"I saw a man ... on his knees," a neighbor who witnessed the explosion told ABC News last week. "He was on fire."
Chief of Detectives Robert Boyce said on Friday that Wray suffered second and third-degree burns to more than 80 percent of his torso and legs, prior to dying at Nassau University Medical Center today.
The incident happened in front of a house that is rented to two families on 222nd Street in Springfield Gardens, according to WABC.
Police told WABC that the mysterious package had been sitting on the front stoop of the building for a number of days before Wray picked it up.
Investigators described the contents of the package to WABC as a cylinder that was packed with black powder, and said that the name on it did not belong to anyone who lives at that address.
The U.S. Postal Service released a statement, saying that they could not comment on it, due to the presence of an active investigation, but police told WABC that they did not believe it was sent through the mail.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.