Father-to-Be Killed By Gender Reveal Contraption He Built

Another person has died because of a gender reveal party: The contraption a New York State dad-to-be was constructing exploded and killed him Sunday, according to The New York Times.

The pipelike device intended to reveal the gender of the baby 28-year-old Christopher Pekny and his girlfriend were having went off unexpectedly, not only killing him but injuring his 27-year-old brother, Michael Pekny.

A mason who was also a "gifted mechanic," Christopher "was really looking forward to starting a family." according to his older brother Peter Pekny. "He was really starting to settle down and grow up," Peter Pekny said.

Members of the Pekny family, well-known in their community, own the Robin Hood Diner in Liberty, N.Y., in the Catskills.

A statement on the diner's Facebook page reads: "We appreciate the overwhelming display of love and support that you all have shown. The Robin Hood will be closed for the immediate future."

Beyond upholding the outmoded gender binary, gender reveal parties have become vectors of calamity over the years.

Christopher Pekny is one of several people who've died in recent years because of one. Just last year, a firefighter died fighting a blaze sparked by a gender reveal party gone awry in the El Dorado fire in California. That wildfire burned more than 21,000 acres as it raged for days in September.

In 2019, one such party led to a plane crash. In another gender reveal party gone bad, a 56-year-old woman died in Iowa after the device the family constructed for the occasion acted as a pipe bomb. The day after that incident, an explosion from another gender reveal in Iowa reportedly shook homes as far as two miles away.