The accident occurred on Wednesday, April 5, when Duncan McDougall was demonstrating the use of hand flares in a field close to the college where he teaches.

The demonstration was being filmed by a colleague, who reports on his website detailing the incident that: "On striking the firing mechanism, the flare ignited momentarily and then detonated violently.

There was serious damage to his hand and arm with a great deal of blood loss, not to mention desperate pain?. It was then we discovered the horrific nature of his other injuries. Suffice to say the metal tube of the device had entered his abdomen and was sticking out of his back."

During the next 24 hours McDougall received 18 pints of blood. His injuries are severe and have been complicated by internal burns and some chemical contamination. He has been into surgery at least six times.

McDougall is still in hospital.

But, having been under permanent anaesthesia and on a ventilator throughout most of April, he was showing signs of coming out of sedation early in May.

The flare was sold to McDougall by Aladdin's Cave. As soon as the flare was identified on the Friday afternoon as being one of their Pains Wessex flares, Glyn Foulkes removed every pyrotechnic from his shelves and refused to sell any until cleared to do so.

Pains Wessex issued a product recall for batch numbers 2045 and 2046 of the affected flares on Wednesday, April 12.

Then, following extensive testing of its flare range, the company upped its recall to include ALL Pains Wessex White Collision Warning (Mk7) Hand Flares, Item No 52651.

The company says there are 52,796 of these in-date flares out there.

Anyone with this product must return it to the place of purchase, or the nearest chandler, for replacement. Pains Wessex set up an email address - recall@pwss. com - and a 24 hour helpline for further assistance on +44 2392 623962.

"We know exactly which distributors the lots were sold to and have communicated with all of them, " said Mike Helme, managing director of Chemring's Energetics Division, parent company of Pains Wessex Safety Systems. "I'd like to thank the media, who have placed the recall notice on web sites and news rooms, which has resulted in widespread and factual press coverage."

Helme said Pains Wessex had also had invaluable assistance from the RNLI, British Marine Federation, RYA, ISAF and Lloyds Register of Shipping, all of which had helped to publicise the recall notices quickly.

The investigation into the accident is still ongoing in co-operation with the Health & Safety Executive and Trading Standards.