The injured man set off a bomb scare at MultiCare Good Samaritan Hospital in Puyallup when bomb-making materials were found in his truck, police said.
An incident in which an 18-year-old Edgewood man was severely injured Sunday by a pipe bomb apparently intended to frighten an ex-girlfriend is the second time police have investigated a blast linked to him, according to a police official.
Puyallup police Capt. Scott Engle said the incident was “almost identical” to another over Thanksgiving weekend involving the same man and another young woman. There was a police investigation; however, there were no injuries or arrests in that incident, Engle said.
In Sunday’s case, the man — who has not been identified but will likely be charged — came into the emergency room at the MultiCare Good Samaritan Hospital in Puyallup around 4 a.m. Sunday with a serious hand injury, apparently the result of an explosion. He was later transferred to Harborview Medical Center in Seattle because of the severity of his injury.
He was accompanied at MultiCare Good Samaritan by a 22-year-old man complaining of less-serious injuries, Engle said.
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In the parking lot, detectives and bomb technicians found the man’s pickup with significant blast damage both inside and out, Engle said, leaving detectives to speculate the man may have ignited a fuse, then tried to throw the bomb out of the truck’s window when it detonated.
The incident triggered a bomb scare at the hospital, which was partly evacuated.
Engle said drugs were also found in the truck.
Later Sunday, investigators located an area near the 700 block of 13th Street Southwest — around the corner from where the suspect’s ex-girlfriend lives — where they believe the detonation occurred.
Engle said the man told detectives “that he had intended to set it off so she would know it was him.”
Engle said the man did the same thing last month with another young woman whom he had been seeing, setting off a loud explosion near her house.