Have you ever been near an explosion? What happened and what was it like?

13 comments

1. Keith Morrison voice,

   It was a warm Saturday night. Sunday morning, really. Decided to stop at a Taco Bell for some late night snacks. A regretful decision it would later turn out to be….

2. Like getting punched on the chest, was pretty cool.

3. Been mortared, RPG’d, and rocketed a number of times (and that doesn’t figure the countless grenades, charges, and breeches I have been around).

   Mostly it’s about a legitimate “thump” in the chest (as far as “feeling”).

4. Watched a building getting demolished, was about 200m away from it (was an old 3 story shopping centre)

   I felt a real thump on the chest like how a concert feels except dialed up to 11, I could also feel it in the ears a bit (not as bad as a concert)

5. Yeah. Never let a friend load the tannerite targets while drunk. Nonflammable, impact triggered binary explosives. Designed to be triggered by bullet impact.

   No blood or gore but we all had hearing damage for a while now even with ear pro. No physical harm since we stood behind cover and far enough away.

6. Vehicle in front of us got blown up, I was the gunner up out of the cupola. Smack of overpressure,, loud noise then everything a little quieter forever except the tonitis. Was happy I didn’t shit myself, it happens sometimes.

7. Not an explosion but a big flare up. Was working in the oilfield and we had to stand on the truck while pumping. It had two 750hp engines on it that ran the two frac pumps mounted on the truck.

   Well I started to smell something funny and I called over the radio, “hey does anyone smell plastic burning”. And I looked over one side of the platform then walked to the other side and at that moment the side I was just at seperated its driveline, wrapped around the hydraulic lines, and it all caught fire. I jumped over the opposite side and fell about 8 feet to the gravel below.

   Luckily it was just a flare up so nobody got hurt and I wasn’t singed at all…. we never shut down and kept on pumping and I had to go back on the truck to finish the job. Good times

8. An IED went off on a convoy I was riding in. Nobody was hurt, fortunately. I was riding in a Stryker and was wearing ear protection, so between the noise of the vehicle and the hearing protection, I only detected a dull thud. I did feel the pressure wave, mostly in my chest and eardrums.

   All I actually saw was a glimpse of some of the dust and smoke through the rear hatch of the Stryker.

9. I was about 30 feet away from a lightning strike in the pouring rain of that counts. Luckily it hit a fence and didn’t spread. The heat and blinding light were something else man.

10. One time in middle school I was at my friends house. His brother just came back from a state that sold really big fireworks that are illegal in our state. And oh christ did he buy a lot of fireworks…. And we all had the great idea to break them open and pour them into this 5 gallon jug we had laying around. So we made a long fuse and buried it in his back yard and lit the fuse. I absolutely was not expecting just how loud it was. It was shocking, disorienting, my ears were ringing, and there was a really big hole in his yard and dirt and dust everywhere. That shit was loud

11. Transformer blew up right underneath me at a stoplight.
    Sparks went everywhere and cover the hood of the car.
    Felt the percussion the noise and for a second thought it was the end. I shit myself.

12. Sort of. A few years ago, I lived in an apartment complex that was a bit close to a power plant or something like that. One day, boom. Minor explosion. It sounded worse than it actually was; you could feel the ground shake for a few seconds, but thankfully only one person injured, and apparently very minor injuries.

13. Yeah. A variety of different kinds in the army and the fire service.

    Loud and hot, mostly, and like getting kicked in the lungs.