Homemade Chemical Bomb Events and Resulting Injuries--- Selected States, January

Homemade chemical bombs (HCBs), also known as acid bombs, bottle bombs, and MacGyver bombs, are explosive devices that can be made easily from volatile household chemicals (e.g., toilet bowl, drain, and driveway cleaners) purchased at a local hardware or grocery store. When these and other ingredients are combined and shaken in a capped container, the internal gas pressure generated from the chemical reaction causes the container to expand and explode. The subsequent explosion can cause injuries or death to persons in the immediate vicinity of the detonation. Since 1996, some of the states participating in the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR)'s Hazardous Substances Emergency Events Surveillance (HSEES) system have been documenting HCB events. This report describes examples of HCB events, summarizes all reported HCB events, discusses associated injuries*, and suggests injury-prevention methods. HSEES is an active multistate health department surveillance system for tracking acute morbidity and mortality resulting from the release of hazardous substances during emergency events†. To determine the frequency of HCB events, ATSDR searched the HSEES database for all years for which data were available (January 1, 1993--March 31, 2003) § from 17 participating states¶. An HCB event is defined as one that involves the release or threatened release of a hazardous substance(s) from an