It was a cold but sunny February afternoon. Lidia, a biology teacher from Sofia, was driving home from a memorial service, accompanied by her husband and a friend. Suddenly, the vehicle stopped. Bystanders saw all three occupants dash from the car to a nearby manhole, and start pouring down liquids and powders from various bottles and jars.
Apparently, Lidia had been doing chemistry experiments in her free time, and had some noxious chemicals left over. It is still not entirely clear what the chemicals were, but two of the bottles had labels: diethyl ether and methanol, both highly flammable substances. The former is also used as a sedative, so one explanation for their actions is that they felt dizzy from the ether vapors, and thought it was a good idea to pour them in the sewer.
As it turns out, a good idea it definitely was not. The cocktail of flammable substances in the enclosed space of the sewer caused an explosion so powerful that it launched the manhole cover into the air, decapitating the (briefly) surprised Lidia. Left without a head on her shoulders, she decided it was time to kick the bucket.
The other two people were not left unharmed, but were alive. They were taken to the hospital with burns on their faces. After several hours in the operating room, it appeared unlikely that they will regain their eyesight, but hopefully are able to speak well enough to tell their children that tossing random chemicals down the drain is not as wise as it might at first appear.
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