Any explosives enthusiast knows what to do with a dud explosive: leave it where it is. My dad and his siblings, living in Vancouver at the time, were no exceptions. As teenagers, they made bombs using old wine bottles and blackpowder, which they made themselves, and exploded the bombs in various places. One day, the siblings were detonating these bombs on a railroad track a few hundred yards from shore. They lit all the bombs they had that day, and all but one blew up as planned. However, there was a Coast Guard boat which saw these explosions and called out over a megaphone, "Hey! What are you kids doing?!" Naturally, they panicked, and fled at that point. As they went to flee the scene, my uncle Robert picked up the dud and stuffed it under his shirt, in what he described as a "financially rational decision", since they had paid for the saltpeter themselves and had a limited number of wine bottles. Naturally, since this is being submitted for a Darwin Award, it was not a dud, and blew up right under his shirt. My dad described him as looking somewhat like a cartoon character, covered in black, with clothes torn and hair sticking straight up, and he was screaming, "I'm burning! I'm burning!" They quickly went home, but were left with a dilemma: get treatment for the burns, and get in trouble, or don't, and get away with it. Robert elected to avoid trouble, and so he was cleaned up and put in clean clothes, and left in the basement. Marco, however, squealed, and Robert spent 3 days in the hospital and has scars to prove it.

He went on to become president and owner of a large Kelowna-based manufacturing company with a heightened respect for explosives... I hope.

Submitted on 06/26/2006

Submitted by: Anonymous
Reference: 1970's [Personal Account]

Copyright © 2006 DarwinAwards.com

James said:
Definitely Keep: Personal Account
A heartwarming tale of a mischeievous kid who learned his lesson (through sheer luck) and made good in the end! Such morality tales tend to make interesting PA's, and I like this enough to keep it!

Jorge said:
Definitely Keep: Personal Account

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