Woman Thought Pipe Bombs Were Fireworks
DOWNERS GROVE (CBS) -- Lynn Sabia thought she found fireworks. They were really live pipe bombs.
She didn't run or call police, but drove around with them for hours before turning them in to authorities.
"It was quite an adventure," the Downers Grove resident told CBS 2's Mike Parker.
It began Wednesday, as she began working in an Aurora house, preparing for an estate sale. In the garage, she found seven pipe bombs.
"To me, they looked like M-80s with wicks," she told CBS 2's Mike Parker. "I thought the only way to detonate them would be to light them. So, I did not feel as if I was in harm's way at all."
She put them in a box in her car's front seat and drove around for four hours before taking them to the Downers Grove Police Department late in the day.
"They were pretty shocked," Sabia said of police's reaction. "They were like 'Why are you driving with these?' I thought they were like home-made fireworks."
Police called in federal bomb experts, who made plans to detonate the devices. Commuter trains that pass nearby were temporarily halted, and the bombs, said to be unstable, were then set off in the police parking lot.
Sabia was in the police station at the time.
"Yes, you could hear the boom," she said.
Jose Cortes, who lives next to the Aurora home where Sabia discovered the pipe bombs, feels lucky they didn't go off when they were in the garage.
"Can you imagine if those bombs had gone off, what would have happened?" he asked.
