My co-worker Matt sent me this link when he learned about my love of the The Whale that Exploded. This is a news clip from 1970 when a sperm whale (they said it was a gray whale but it is actually a sperm whale) died after he beached himself. To be far it has to be difficult to decide what to do with a 45 foot 8 ton animal when it dies on your beach. It's not like you can call animal control and they come out with a shovel and scoop it up.
The highway department decided that the best way to remove the animal was with dynamite. Gotta love a man who likes to use dynamite as a solution. They used 1/2 ton of dynamite in the hopes that the whale would explode into small pieces and the birds would eat the little pieces and the problem would be solved. Unfortunately there is this little thing called Murphy's Law and Murphy's Law basically states that anything that can go wrong will go wrong.
Watch the video and you can see exactly what went wrong. Watch closely at the very beginning and you will see a kid about 8-10 years old that is in the background. You only see him briefly and not again in the video, but knowing that he was there for this monumental event makes me wonder if he was traumatized for life and has an ingrained fear of falling whale blubber.