A 12-year-old boy was fatally injured while playing with fireworks on Sunday night, according to Metro police.

The boy, identified by family members as Antonio Braden, lit some kind of mortar shell and it exploded, hitting him in the chest around 10:30 p.m.

Antonio lived nearby on Carroll Street. Metro police said he was with a group of teens on Lewis Street who were setting off bottle rockets and Roman candles.

Joshua Woods, 24, was setting off artillery type firework shells and said he saw two juveniles grab them. He asked Antonio to retrieve one of them from a friend, and the juvenile reportedly threw the shell, causing it to break.

Woods said he then saw Antonio holding a tube toward the sky and another teen lit the firework, which was damaged.

The firework went off into Antonio’s chest. He ran about 30 feet before collapsing, according to police.

Witnesses said Antonio was in shock after the explosion.

“He started running,” said Santecia Wells, a witness. “And when he started running, he just spin and he just collapsed.”

Woods and another man took Antonio in their car to Monroe Carrell Jr. Children’s Hospital, where he was pronounced dead.

Tonisha Braden, 16, described her brother as a “good kid with big dreams.”

“My brother was in there on the bed fighting for his life. He wasn’t pulling through. His heart stopped beating as soon as he hit the ground, so there wasn’t anything they could do about it. I begged them, ‘Can they try, can they try?’ He didn’t pull through,” she said.

Antonio’s family hopes this tragedy serves as a lesson to others in the community.

“Don’t let their kids around other adults that contribute to the kids with fireworks, because stuff like this can happen,” Tonisha Braden said.

Doctors echoed this advice.

“I don’t think any child should have his or her hands on fireworks,” said Corey Slovis, chair of the Department of Emergency Medicine at Vanderbilt Medical Center.

On Monday night, dozens of people attended a vigil in the parking lot on Lewis Street where Antonio was playing.

Edward Artis, a neighbor on Lewis Street, said children carrying fireworks is not unusual in the neighborhood.

“It’s quite a few,” Artis said. “You got at least 20 or 30 kids running around shooting off fireworks.”

It is illegal to set off fireworks in Davidson County, with the exception of public displays that have permits.

No one has been charged in the incident, but Metro police said it remains under investigation.