Frozen water balloon thrown through windshield injures Northern California driver

(KCRA-TV) A Northern California driver was injured when a frozen water balloon was thrown through his windshield, sending shattered glass into his face, he said.

The California Highway Patrol is investigating the incident, which happened around 9:30 p.m. Thursday, Nov. 6, in Yuba County.

Alex Plant said he was driving home from work around 9:30 p.m. on Browns Valley Road (Highway 20), a few miles northeast of Marysville, when someone in a car traveling the opposite direction threw something at him.

“It came through the window and hit me in the face. … I barely saw it for a quarter of a second before it just came straight through,” he said.

Plant was able to pull off the two-lane highway, and — confused and with his eyes quickly swelling — he asked Siri to call 911.

A piece of white balloon stuck in the shattered windshield gave a clue as to what happened.  First responders took Plant to a hospital, where he said medical staff spent hours removing shards of glass from his face and eyes.

Days later, his vision remained blurry, and his eyes were sensitive to light.

“I was a random victim, but somebody didn’t randomly do this act, right?” he said. “Somebody went through all that trouble to, like, freeze it, tie it off, you know what I mean? And then throw it through the windshield before it defrosted. That’s just crazy. Somebody went through all of that for just a random act of violence.”

A California Highway Patrol spokesperson said the agency’s investigators are working to identify the attacker’s vehicle, but they have limited information and no witnesses.

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