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Mythbusters Stunt Goes Awry, Cannonball Accidentally Fired Into Home

VIDEO

by Nando Di Fino | 9:20 am, December 7th, 2011

http://www.mediaite.com/tv/mythbusters- ... into-home/

The reality show Mythbusters was filming an experiment involving a cannonball Tuesday in Dublin, Calif., when something went terribly awry. The fired cannonball ended up smashing two holes through a house, just missing a family that was asleep inside.

Sgt. J.D. Nelson, a consultant for the show, told Paul Thissen of the Contra Costa Times that the nearby firing range where the experiment was set up had been used in stunts about 50 previous times without incident. The cannon had been used three times in the previous two years for the show. He added:

“The cannonball was supposed to go through a few water-filled barrels and a concrete wall. Instead, it passed over the barrels, through the wall, and then took a very unfortunate bounce that sent the ball skyward.”

The cannonball traveled about 700 yards from the range, went through one wall of a house, out another, and ended up smashing the window of a nearby van. According to Demian Bulwa and Henry K. Lee of The San Francisco Chronicle:

“[The Cannonball] exited the house, leaving a perfectly round hole in the stucco, crossed six-lane Tassajara Road, took out several tiles from the roof of a home on Bellevue Circle and finally slammed into the Gill family’s beige Toyota Sienna minivan in a driveway on Springvale Drive.”

On the bright side for the Gill family, they’re likely the only people in the world who can say that, “our beige minivan’s in the shop right now because it was struck by a cannonball.”

Enjoy a report on the incident below, courtesy of ABC:

http://www.mediaite.com/tv/mythbusters- ... into-home/

Like all good Mythbusters explosions, this one deserves multiple points of view....

(12-07) 13:11 PST DUBLIN -- One of the zany experiments staged by the "Mythbusters" television show nearly turned into a suburban tragedy Tuesday afternoon in Dublin when the crew fired a homemade cannon toward huge containers of water at the Alameda County Sheriff's Department bomb disposal range.

The cantaloupe-sized cannonball missed the water, tore through a cinder-block wall, skipped off a hillside and flew some 700 yards east, right into the Tassajara Creek neighborhood, where children were returning home from school at 4:15 p.m., authorities said.

There, the 6-inch projectile bounced in front of a home on quiet Cassata Place, ripped through the front door, raced up the stairs and blasted through a bedroom, where a man, woman and child slept through it all - only awakening because of plaster dust.

The ball wasn't done bouncing.

It

Dave (imported) wrote: Thu Dec 08, 2011 1:26 pm exited the house, leaving a perfectly round hole in the stucco, crossed six-lane Tassajara Road, took out several tiles from the roof of a home on Bellevue Circle and finally slammed into the Gill family's beige Toyota Sienna minivan in a driveway on Springvale Drive.

That's where Jasbir Gill, 42, who had pulled up 10 minutes earlier with his 13-year-old son, Manvir, found the ball on the floorboards, with glass everywhere and an obliterated dashboard.

"It's shocking - anything could have happened," Gill said after the van had been taken away as evidence, along with the cannonball.

"Crazy, crazy, crazy, crazy," said Sgt. J.D. Nelson, a spokesman for the Alameda County Sheriff's Department. "You wouldn't think it was possible."

He said the television crew was incredibly unlucky that the cannonball flew through Dublin, but "tremendously lucky that it didn't seriously injure or kill somebody."

Nelson said "Mythbusters," a show on the Discovery Channel, had used the bomb disposal range without incident while shooting portions of more than 50 episodes over the past seven or eight years. The show does not pay a set fee but has donated to the department and given it exposure.

One of the terms of the deal, Nelson said, was that the show take out insurance in case of a mishap.

The show is based in San Francisco. Hosts Adam Savage and Jamie Hyneman use science experiments to confirm or debunk rumors or myths. Reached Tuesday evening, Savage said, "I can't talk right now," before hanging up.

This isn't the first time projectiles in the area have hit homes. In 2007, a stray .223-caliber bullet, apparently fired during a training exercise at Camp Parks Army base in Dublin, shattered the bedroom window of a San Ramon home.

E-mail the writers at dbulwa@sfchronicle.com and hlee@sfchronicle.com.

This article appeared on page C - 1 of the San Francisco Chronicle

Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.c ... z1ftUnCKUH

I'm glad nobody was injured, this could easily have turned out so differently. It does, however, sound exactly like the kind of outrageous incident that they'd be called to mythbust.

Here's hoping the incident doesn't put an end to the show.

In the middle of the article it has this link: "RELATED: Love Cougar Town And Hate The Price Is Right? Odds Are You’re A Democrat (http://www.mediaite.com/online/love-cou ... -democrat/)"

WTF???????

I loved that show, I no longer get it, but usually they are very careful about what happens, remember the time they used a little TNT to break up the dried cement in the cement truck.

The biggest piece they found of the truck could be used as a small paper weight for your desk.

River

Every once in a while when blasting in an open pit mine, all the blast energy can be focused and really send one boulder sized rock sailing. The first time you see that, you are looking madly around wondering where to run.

In that situation, you watch the projectile to see where it is going to fall and run away from that spot. It's an old method of avoiding the falling objects... The opposite of what you would do with a fly ball in baseball or a "hail Mary" pass in football -- watch and run the other way.

It's kind of inviting you know - a small sign in your yard saying "this is where the Mythbuster's shot my house with a cannonball" Probably worth an extra 10 grand at selling time.

Hurray Mythbusters! I <3 Discovery.

Is the myth that the Mythbusters are professionally competent hereby busted?

Or, is that a mythically forbidden question?

I don't think they ever tried to make themselves look like they make no mistakes. Lol if anything they revel in the fact that things go horrendously wrong at times. Although not often with risk to life and limb.

They try very hard to be very safe but as they say - don't try this at home.

Well, even the best plans of mice and men often go right down the porcelain and into the deep doo-doo.