'Mythbusters' Experiment Sends Cannonball Through House
A stunt conducted by the television show “Mythbusters” went very wrong when a cannonball went tearing through a California neighborhood, crashing into a minivan after ripping through a house.
The cannonball was on the Alameda County Sheriff's Department bomb range, which is located behind the Santa Rita Jail, when it misfired, according to authorities.
Sheriff’s spokesman J.D. Nelson stated that the mishap occurred Tuesday afternoon when the show’s crew attempted to fire a cannonball through large containers filled with water but missed.
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Nelson, who is also a consultant for the show, said, "We had some tremendous bad luck and some tremendous good luck," citing that no one was hurt.
Reports from the San Francisco Chronicle state that the errant projectile then barreled down and skipped off a hillside, which caused it to continue right into the Tassajara Creek neighborhood.
The wayward object crashed through the front door of a house on Cassata Place then smashed through the back wall of the house. The cannonball then skipped across Tassajara Road, a busy four lane thoroughfare.
The object would ultimately come to rest after it crashed through the dashboard of a minivan.
The local publication Contra Costa Times talked with the owner of the minivan Jasbir Gill. "It's scary," Gill said. "I was in the van five minutes before this happened."
He said he would like the show's producers to pay for the damages and to apologize for the incident.
Nelson said "Mythbusters" had used the bomb disposal range without incident while shooting portions of more than 50 episodes over the past seven or eight years.
"Mythbusters," which is produced for Discovery Channel by Beyond Productions, issued a statement through publicist Katherine Nelson late Tuesday that said the production company "is currently assessing the situation and working with those whose property was affected.”
