UPDATED The cannonball was supposed to blast through an array of water barrels and a cinderblock wall. Supposed to. Instead it hit the wall, a hill and Jasbir Gill’s Toyota Sienna. Now do you see why they tell you not to try this at home?
The accident occurred Tuesday afternoon at an Alameda County Police bomb range adjacent to Santa Rita Jail, about a half mile outside of Dublin. The gun had lifted slightly from its intended position just before it fired, putting the steel round over the water barrels, off the hillside, and 700 yards East.
There it bounced through the front door of a home, up the front stairs, through a bedroom—past a sleeping family—out the wall, over a six-lane road, and on through the van’s front passenger window. Nobody was injured, though Gill was understandably peeved. “I’m angry and lucky to be alive. Anybody could have been hit by this,” he told the San Francisco Chronicle.
Side note: Do they make apology cards for this sort of thing? Like, “Sorry I blew out your windows from a half-mile” or “I totally didn’t think that was plugged in” or “Who expected alligators down there? Not me.” They should [SFGate]
James
Wednesday, December 7, 2011 at 5:39 PMThe story above understates what happened (and what could almost have been a tragedy) – the errant cannonball did more than crash through a van’s front window – before getting to the van the cannonball went right through a house across a major boulevard. Photos are included in this article from Dublin’s local newspaper, Dublin Patch: http://dublin.patch.com/articles/mythbusters-tv-show-filming-may-be-source-of-explosion.
smurfydog
Wednesday, December 7, 2011 at 8:38 PMI just read your link, and yeah, this post doesn’t relate anywhere near how major a f*** up this was!
Anonymouse
Wednesday, December 7, 2011 at 5:47 PMBusted!
(I’m sorry)
Ozoneocean
Wednesday, December 7, 2011 at 7:18 PMYeah, like James said- the fact that it ended up going through the side window of a parked car is pretty trivial, the important part is that it went through one side of a HOUSE and out the other, while people were inside!
VERY lucky there weren’t some deaths here.
Adz
Thursday, December 8, 2011 at 10:57 AMHaha it had to be said.
Adz
Thursday, December 8, 2011 at 10:58 AMSorry, replied to wrong comment.
Luke
Wednesday, December 7, 2011 at 7:31 PMI think it would be an honour to get a mythbusters cannonball go through my car window, the least he could have done is got an autograph from them.
What are the odds though?
Ozoneocean
Wednesday, December 7, 2011 at 8:54 PMConsidering it blasted all the way through a house first I’d say they were excellent- the area outside of the bomb testing rage is pretty densely populated. The projectile went in a straight line right into an urban area. The odds are 1:1 that the thing was going to hit something there. It’s just super amazingly fortunate that no one was mashed to death by it.
This was a F-up of supreme proportions!
Vuunik
Thursday, December 8, 2011 at 12:19 AMAbout the most interesting thing they have done in a long time.
Virus__
Thursday, December 8, 2011 at 1:09 AMActually I beg to differ. Since the return this season they have been rather interesting. As opposed to blowing things up every episode, there has been some thought put into the myths at hand.
Whilst I agree a lot of their more recent seasons since becoming more known have been hit & miss, mostly miss. They still do some rather interesting things.
Ollie
Thursday, December 8, 2011 at 12:39 PMI guess this one was a hit then…
Badum-ching.
Virus__
Thursday, December 8, 2011 at 1:32 PMTouché good sir!
Sky Bolt
Thursday, December 8, 2011 at 12:26 AMRegarding the side note on apology cards: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NxRay6KwKXg
andy
Thursday, December 8, 2011 at 12:42 AMThis story seems to be on every site I visited today
If a bunch of kids messing about in their back yard with a home made potato cannon did the same thing it probably wouldn’t even make their local tabloid.
No doubt a lot of people are going to start submitting their opinions, starting the ‘armchair finger pointing blame game’.
Not taking into account the people who actually setup the cannon (do you really think the presenters really do all the work?).
Insurance will then crawl up their ass, and cancel the show.
alphamone
Thursday, December 8, 2011 at 1:14 AMI would point out that technicaly, the fault will fall on the main bomb tech, as they have the final call as to when the explosives are set off, and to make sure it is safe to do so. This means that it is quite likely that the Mythbusters insurance agency will be arguing that it is up to the Alameda county’s insurance to pay for the damage. It also means that Alameda might soon have a promotion opportunity for a new bomb technician.
Drew
Thursday, December 8, 2011 at 9:19 AMWhat is a bomb range doing so close to a residential area?
Ash
Thursday, December 8, 2011 at 9:42 AMThe rang has probably been there for years and the houses have just grown up around it.
Ash
Thursday, December 8, 2011 at 9:43 AM*range…. (no redheads were meant to be offended in the making of this comment)
Drew
Thursday, December 8, 2011 at 10:45 AMEither way regardless of who was there first, houses should never have been allowed to be built so close to it.
winter
Thursday, December 8, 2011 at 9:36 AM@ Drew, I work on a Defence range and we are being pressured by Local/State governments to decrease the size of the safety buffer around our range so that the land can be sold for housing. I have seen a base shut down and the land sold, but the buyer haven’t been fully informed that the land ‘maybe’ contaminated with chemicals used in explosives production or the sales contract is written so that the government is only responsable for anything in the first 1metre of topsoil, This base was active in ordnance production from WWII til the mid 90s.
light487
Thursday, December 8, 2011 at 9:58 AMI love the Mythbusters but it was only a matter of time before one of their “stunts” went out of control and almost killed someone.
There was another myth they did regarding car chases and what would happen when the car went through various cliche`ed obstacles.. a fruit stand, chain link fence/gate, through a caravan and the last one was where the car went under a semi-trailer and the roof is supposed to come off the car.. well the car kept going.. and going and going.. and ended up flying over the hill (read: ramp) at the back of the lot.. flying up into the air and over teh back fence.. there was a road back there, albeit a service road, but there could have been someone walking along it or driving/riding there…
TSH
Thursday, December 8, 2011 at 11:42 AMAccidents happen, I suppose. And this is what insurance is for. They’re damn lucky that nobody was hurt though.