California Teacher Gives Warning about Dry Ice Bombs

It was likely a grad night prank, but the Vallejo woman injured by a dry ice bomb near her home isn’t laughing, and neither are police, a spokesman said Tuesday.

Vallejo Police Department Sgt. Lee Horton said the incident, which happened in June, is still under investigation, and if the bomb makers are found, they “will be charged with the appropriate felonies and prosecuted.”

The Vallejo woman, a teacher here, said she picked up a plastic Coke bottle near Highland Elementary School, “and it exploded in my hand.”

The woman, who didn’t want her name published, said she suffered second-degree burns on her face, and was cut by plastic shrapnel from the bottle that had been filled with a combination of dry ice and water, making it an incendiary device.

It was the day after garbage day and the woman thought the bottle had fallen off the garbage truck, so she picked it up to throw it away, she said.

“It was an emotional shock, and the scars and some residual pain remains,” she said. “But my first thought was, ‘thank God there were no children in proximity.’ ”

The woman was taken by ambulance to an area hospital, and Horton said he recalls the case as “pretty horrible.”

Though the incident happened months ago, it all came rushing back last week, when a 68-year-old Santa Rosa woman was injured by an exploding soda bottle she picked up while helping to clean up a local park. The Vallejo victim saw a report of the incident on the television news, and felt compelled to let people know to be careful.

Vallejo police and fire department officials said Tuesday that while there has been no rash of these homemade bombs blowing up in town, one is too many. Officials suspect youths taking bomb-making instruction from the Internet were responsible for the blast that injured the Vallejo teacher.

“It’s no joke,” Horton said. “People can get killed, lose limbs, eyes. It’s very dangerous. And just being caught in possession of it is a felony.”

Horton said that most discarded soda bottles are harmless, but this type of dry ice bomb has a distinctive appearance, and anyone seeing one should stay away from it and call police.

“Don’t touch a soda bottle that looks unusual, white, smoky and swollen,” he said. “Don’t touch it, or kick it or anything. These are highly unstable and movement initiates the explosion.”

Story by Vallejo Times