Man Flees as Explosion Rips Through Motor Home

A 63-year-old man escaped unscathed in Costa Mesa early Wednesday when a pipe bomb exploded, ripping through his motor home.

Milne Joseph Ongley, an acupuncturist from San Diego who works Wednesdays through Sundays at the Yarwood Community Health Care Center at 136 Broadway in Costa Mesa, was asleep in his motor home behind the center when he was awakened by a noise and then saw flames, according to police and his colleagues. It was 6:30 a.m.

Ongley briefly fought the blaze with a fire extinguisher before running outside. As he fled, a pipe bomb exploded beneath the motor home, police said. Ongley was not injured, but the explosion shattered nearby windows, shot a hunk of metal through a nearby garage door and toppled several power lines.

Police Lt. Rick Johnson said police are investigating the blast as a possible attempted murder but have no suspect or motive.

Ongley Wednesday declined to comment. Colleagues at the clinic said he was joined later in the day by his wife, his father-in-law and a son.

“He was a little shook up, but now he’s OK,” said Edith Moffitt, a secretary at the clinic who said she spoke with Ongley a couple of hours after the blast.

A spokeswoman for the clinic said Ongley is a consultant for an orthopedic practice run by Dr. Louis Schlom, who rents office space in the building. Ongley has worked at the center for two years, she said.

Moffitt said Ongley commutes to Costa Mesa from his home in San Diego to work at the clinic. He always sleeps in his motor home in the clinic’s parking lot, she said.

Ongley was licensed to practice acupuncture in California in 1978 and has no history of disciplinary action, according to the state Board of Medical Quality Assurance.

“He’s a very nice fellow,” said Dr. Bjorn Eek, who added that he has known Ongley since 1981. Ongley, originally from New Zealand, “is quiet and stays to himself,” Eek said. “I can’t conceive that anybody could be after him.”

The blast jolted residents near the clinic.

“There was a real loud explosion and it blew my neighbor’s windows out,” said Dyanne Van Houten, who lives in an apartment across the alley from where Ongley’s motor home was parked.

When Van Houten rushed outside, the rear of the motor home was engulfed in flames and the blaze was moving forward to the engine, she said. “Then there was a second explosion in the back end and the flames shot straight up,” she said. “It lit up the sky, it was all orange.”

Ongley sat on a curb away from the blazing wreck, Van Houten said.

“He looked a little shook,” she said. “He was white-faced.”

Investigators with the Orange County Sheriff’s Department bomb squad worked all day Wednesday taking apart what remained of Ongley’s 1978 Argosy motor home, sifting the charred debris for clues, Lt. Johnson said. Police found a deep hole beneath the vehicle made by the explosion.

According to a brochure at the center, which rents office space to chiropractic and orthopedic practitioners, Ongley’s specialty is treating ligament and tendon injuries with injections of phenol, dextrose and glycerin. The brochure states that Ongley developed the treatment in New Zealand.