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John Hollenhorst ReportingFour Salt Lake children were injured when a so-called "acid bomb" blew up in their faces. They were making the bomb in the family kitchen while the parents watched TV Tuesday night.
The main ingredient was something we're all familiar with, a drain cleaner. Initially the kids told police the Drano erupted while they were trying to unplug a drain. But later the oldest boy admitted he was trying to make a bomb while the younger kids looked on.
Paramedics quickly got the kids out of the house and on their way to the hospital. They have burns, some of them severe, around their face and eyes. The kids range in age from four to 17. The oldest boy was mixing ingredients in a metal coffee mug.
Lt. John Cardona, S.L.C. Police Dept.: "Somewhere he had read either in a book or on the internet how to make a so-called acid bomb. And unfortunately he put the correct chemicals together and it caused some type of reaction. And it exploded in their face and we have all four of these children in the hospital with eye injury."
The metal coffee cup was flaking off after the accident. So investigators say the metal may have played a role in the chemical reaction.
Police don't believe the parents were negligent. They were just watching TV and assumed the kids were just in the kitchen making a sandwich or something.
