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Thread: Exploding Whale Guy (George Thornton) Died Aged 84

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    Senior Member blighted star's Avatar
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    Exploding Whale Guy (George Thornton) Died Aged 84



    http://usnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2013...ing-whale-dies

    An engineer who blew up a whale carcass in Oregon using some 20 cases of dynamite has died, but the biggest bang of his career will live forever in YouTube infamy.

    George Thornton, who was called into action by the Oregon Department of Transportation when a 45-foot whale washed up on the beach near Florence, Ore., in 1970, passed away on Sunday, The Oregonian reported. He was 84.

    The massive mammal that beached on Oregon's coastline on Nov. 9, 1970, was dead on arrival, and for a few days, local officials, unaccustomed to whales washing up on their shore, struggled with what to do with it. Burying it could result in it being uncovered; cutting it up or burning it were also ruled out because it was so big.

    So highway officials called on Oregon Department of Transportation highway engineer Thornton to think of another way to remove the whale, which by that point, was starting to decay. Thornton devised a plan: He and a crew would line the beached beast with dynamite, hit the plunger, and let the pieces of blubber scatter into the water. What was left would be cleaned up by seagulls and crabs, he figured.

    "It was unbelievable," former correspondent Paul Linnman, whose news report on the whale explosion has garnered millions of views on YouTube, said of the whale. "The smell would have knocked you over. We went about our business, and got the video we needed, and caught up with Mr. Thornton, and spoke to him about what they thought they were going to do. He was all business, strictly an engineer-type. Only later that day did I find out he got stuck holding the bag that day."

    Thornton later complained that the job fell on his shoulders because his co-workers "conveniently" planned to go deer hunting.

    "To be fair, they had plans to go, but this thing made them all the more anxious to go," Thornton said, according to The Oregonian.

    The event was captured by cameras on Nov. 12, 1970, for Linnman's news station, Portland affiliate KATU-TV.

    "I'm confident that it will work. The only thing is, we're not sure just exactly how much explosives it will take to disintegrate this thing so the scavengers ? seagulls, crabs and whatnot ? can clean it up," Thornton, wearing a hard hat, told Linnman on-camera minutes before the explosion.

    It didn't go as planned.

    Bystanders were moved back a quarter of a mile before the blast, but were forced to flee as blubber and huge chunks of whale came raining down on them. Parked cars even further from the scene got smashed by pieces of dead whale. No one was hurt, but the small pieces of whale remains were flecked onto anyone in the area.

    "The pieces that went into the air were of all sizes. The piece that flattened the car was about coffee-table size. But blubber is so dense that a piece as big as the tip of your finger can be like a bullet and kill you," Linnman said. "I'm so happy and so thankful that nobody got hurt, nobody got killed, because I don't think this thing would have lasted all these years had it been a more serious incident than it was."

    To make matters worse, a large section of whale carcass never moved from the blast site at all. In the end, highway crews buried all the pieces and particles of the whale.

    "It might be concluded that should a whale ever wash ashore on Lane County again, those in charge will not only remember what to do, they'll certainly remember what not to do," Linnman said at the conclusion of his report on the blast.

    Thornton worked for the Oregon Department of Transportation from 1947 until his retirement in December 1984, a spokesman for the department said, and then continued on as a consultant for five years after that. The department never blew up another whale after Thornton's infamous incident, even when 41 whales beached themselves near Florence at the same time in 1979.

    "They were cut up and removed," said Don Hamilton, public information officer for the Oregon Department of Transportation. "ODOT has to deal with a lot of interesting incidents involving wildlife. Usually these involve deer and ducks and migrating fish, but on very rare occasions, we have to also deal with issues involving whales. [Thornton's] was not the first and not the last, and it's safe to say we've learned a lot in our ability to address those issues."

    The department now works with experts at the Marine biology center at Oregon State University when beached whales come onto shore.

    "We have to look at every situation and evaluate it," Hamilton said.

    Thornton died in Medford, Ore., Hamilton said.

    After the news report aired, Thornton did not stay in touch with Linnman, who is now 66 and working as a news talk radio host. Linnman reached out to Thornton when he wrote a book entitled "The Exploding Whale and Other Remarkable Stories from the Evening News" in 2003 and on various anniversaries of the explosion, but the only response he got from Thornton was: "No, it seems like whenever I talk to the media, it blows up in my face."

    The video of the blast is the sixth-most watched video in history, according to BBC research, Linnman said.

    Linnman decided to "play around a little bit" with his report in a time when television news was very serious, "but the one thing I didn't want to do was make fun of anybody or in any way imply that Mr. Thornton had made this terrible mistake."

    He and his cameraman almost didn't go to cover it at all.

    "We were just having a good time covering the news. We were chasing cops and politicians and disasters and we were both in our early 20s and it was all about having some exciting times. When I first got assigned to go to the coast to cover the whale, I told the news director at the time, 'I'm one the of the star reporters around here. I'm not going to go cover a dead whale.' He said, 'They're using dynamite.' And I said, 'OK, I'm going.'"

    This story was originally published on Thu Oct 31, 2013 11:40 AM EDT
    Toon from http://givealittlebit.blogspot.com.a...ale-comic.html
    click link to see all of it



    It's almost the 43rd anniversary!!
    Last edited by blighted star; 11-05-2013 at 04:28 AM.

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    Senior Member blighted star's Avatar
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    This one's better



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    Senior Member blighted star's Avatar
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    & I guess the competing whale tale from Taiwan needs a mention

    Less gross version


    More gross version


    Hitch-hiker version

    Last edited by blighted star; 11-05-2013 at 05:04 AM.

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    Senior Member blighted star's Avatar
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    KWD has reminded me that I forgot to do my regular exploding whale search!!

    Here are the latest exploding whales -


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    Senior Member blighted star's Avatar
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    This is a poxy compilation of some of the most splatterific whale explosions

    Last edited by blighted star; 05-01-2014 at 06:55 AM.

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    Senior Member blighted star's Avatar
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    Whale explodes in man's face? I have a feeling the explosion wasn't quite so focused


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    Senior Member blighted star's Avatar
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    This might be my current favourite (not including the dynamite whale of 1970 of course)


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    Senior Member blighted star's Avatar
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    One bit of whalefishy music & I'll forget this thread for another year


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    Senior Member blighted star's Avatar
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    Almost a year since I updated!


    This one doesn't explode during the vid but it would've been amazing footage if it had.


    It's the Australian version - riding the about-to-explode whale while it's still at sea & surrounded by great white sharks




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    Senior Member blighted star's Avatar
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    This one looks like a really big dead slug





  11. #11
    Senior Member blighted star's Avatar
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    & Australia again







    There's another deliberately exploded whale from South Afrika but it's kind off too sad because they were trying to save it before that level of intervention became necessary - & it's not really much of an expolsion anyway.

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    Senior Member animosity's Avatar
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    gross. why would you ride a dead whale?
    Quote Originally Posted by songbirdsong View Post
    "Say, you know who could handle this penis? MY MOTHER."

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    Senior Member Caffeinatedkat's Avatar
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    And this is why I am a vegetarian lol

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