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http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/2757345.htm
Posted on Wed, Feb. 27, 2002
Woman severely injured in car blast in Keys
BY JENNIFER BABSON jbabson@herald.com
MARATHON - A car bomb ripped through a car in Marathon Wednesday morning, injuring a 51-year old Marathon woman and halting traffic on U.S. 1 through the Florida Keys for several hours.
At about 8:45 a.m. the woman was sitting in the southbound intersection of Sombrero Beach Road and U.S. 1 near a shopping plaza in Marathon, waiting to turn left, when an explosive device went off, blowing a hole in the bottom of the car and severely injuring the woman's legs, Monroe County Sheriff's spokeswoman Becky Herrin said.
Through the morning, police were trying to determine whether a second bomb might be in the car. The FBI is assisting the sheriff's office with the investigation and has dispatched an evidence response team from Miami-Dade County. By early afternoon, however, police had ruled out a second explosive.
''They initially thought there might be a second device, but there is not,'' Herrin said.
The woman, whose name has not been released by police, was taken to Fishermen's Hospital in Marathon and later airlifted to Ryder Trauma Center in Miami.
The blast occurred near a heavily traveled section of Marathon adjacent to a shopping center that includes a Publix supermarket and K-Mart. The explosion also injured the driver of a truck next to the woman's car, Herrin said.
The incident backed up traffic in both directions on U.S. one for hours, though by early afternoon, police had restored flow to a trickle by rerouting cars through a nearby parking lot.
''It's gridlock all the way to the Seven-Mile Bridge and quite a way in the other direction as well,'' Herrin said. A law enforcement source at the scene said the explosive device -- which the source said may be a pipe bomb -- did not entirely destroy the woman's gray, four-door Saturn.
''The car is remarkably still intact, so whatever it was, it wasn't terribly powerful,'' the source said.
Police are expected to be on-scene for several hours.
Anyone see a red pickup truck leaving the scene?