Michigan Man Loses Both Arms After House Filled With Ammunition Explodes

A man's arms were blown off by an explosion at a property that had allegedly been stuffed with an arsenal of guns, ammunition and bombs.

The victim, who is in his 30s, was reportedly left in critical condition after the blast at around 3:10 p.m. in Warren, Michigan, on Saturday, June 11.

The explosion ripped apart the garage with a subsequent fire engulfing other parts of the house on the 20700 block of Gentner Street, Warren Police Commissioner William Dwyer said.

"The State Police was called out and they removed several small explosive devices and I can only suspect that he has been working on some sort of explosive device and it blew up," Dwyer told the Detroit Free Press on Sunday. He said it was extremely fortunate that no one else was hurt considering the volume of explosives at the property, adding: "There were no other injuries to any of the neighbors and no other damages any other homes or anything in that neighborhood."

The man, who Dwyer said was already under investigation before the explosion, is now in a coma and undergoing treatment at the Detroit Receiving Hospital.

Long Criminal History

He has a long criminal history, involving weapons charges and manufacturing explosive items, according to Dwyer, who alleged that an illegal weapons operation was being run from the property.

After the blast, police executed a search warrant and found small explosive devices, a dozen guns, including rifles and handguns, loaded automatic rifle-style magazines, and about 4,000 rounds of ammunition, according to The Detroit News.

Warren's Fire Department and the Michigan State Police bomb squad all attended the scene, along with the police officers.

Newsweek has reached out to Warren Police Department for further information.

It's not the first time a suspect has been accused of running a weapons lab inside a home.

A Pennsylvania man was arrested in September 2021 after authorities accused him of operating a dangerous and illegal home laboratory making military-grade explosives. The 44-year-old was charged with possessing weapons of mass destruction, risking a catastrophe, and reckless endangerment.

Earlier the same year, in June 2021, a New York woman who considered Osama bin Laden her "hero" was sentenced to more than 16 years in prison for teaching others how to build bombs. Noelle Velentzas, 33, from Queens, hoped the explosives would be used in a terrorist attack, according to the Department of Justice (DOJ).

Also in New York, after a mass shooting on a subway train in Brooklyn in April, several undetonated explosive devices were found at the subway station at 36th Street and Fourth Avenue.

While across the pond, later that same month, army bomb disposal experts were sent to defuse explosives after the discovery of two hand grenades in a van close to a McDonald's restaurant in England. It later transpired that the grenades dated back to World War II. They had been kept for decades inside a home, which was then cleared out by removal workers, who loaded the weapons into the van.