Sent by Pat Miller, February 27, 2003
This story has been published on countless websites as well as in newspapers and books. It appears to be a hoax; read the notes at the end of this page.
(actual AP wire headline)
Linda Burnett, 23, a resident of San Diego, was visiting her in-laws, and while there, went to a nearby supermarket to pick up some groceries.
Several people noticed her sitting in her car with the windows rolled up, eyes closed, and both hands behind the back of her head.
One customer who had been at the store for a while became concerned and walked over to the car. He noticed that Linda’s eyes were now open and she looked very strange.
He asked her if she was okay, and she replied that she had been shot in the back of the head and had been holding her brains in for over an hour.
The man called the paramedics who broke into the car because the doors were locked and Linda refused to remove her hands from her head. When they finally got in, they found that she had a wad of bread dough on the back of her head.
A Pillsbury biscuit canister had exploded from the heat, making a loud noise that sounded like a gunshot, and the wad of dough hit her in the back of her head. When she reached back to find out what it was, she felt the dough and thought it was her brains. She had initially passed out, but quickly recovered and tried to hold her brains in for over an hour until someone noticed and came to her aid.
And, yes, Linda is a blonde.
The Urban Legends Reference Pages have a good article about this one; it’s entitled The Biscuit Bullet.
An old posting at SpamCop.net (which has been since taken down) identified the unfortunate blonde as “Kelly Karson, 34, a resident of Arlington, VA.” A respondent to the post noted that “The AP rarely includes editorial commentary such as ‘And, yes, Kelly is a blonde.’ in their news stories.”
Among the zillions of other Web pages which contained this story was a page at OrangeHairedBoy.com (alas, it is no longer available), to which a reader responded thusly:
Trouble is, it would take anywhere from three to five hours in VERY hot sun with the doors shut. In other words, the driver would not be able to enter the car (or, Heaven help her, leave it) at any time.
Another respondent said it was a true story, and it was about her mom in San Antonio in 1992. She had bought the dough on sale, so it had already been sitting out for a long period of time. She then got into the car, and the can exploded. The only difference was that she had a little boy in the car who started crying, and she imagined he was crying at the sight of her brains spilling out.