Mailbox Bomb Hurts Man Accused of Rigging It : Woodland Hills: Ross Woolley is arrested when a homemade explosive device falls out of his pocket at the hospital.

A man who neighbors claim often blows things up was injured early Friday by a mailbox he allegedly rigged to explode and was arrested at a hospital after a homemade bomb fell out of his pocket.

The injured man, Ross Woolley, 29, of Woodland Hills, was reported in satisfactory condition at West Valley Hospital and Medical Center, where he underwent surgery for injuries to his arm, said hospital spokeswoman Johna Rogovin.

Woolley and Tony Hawkins, 24, of Reseda, were arrested on suspicion of exploding a destructive device in a Woodland Hills mailbox. Woolley will be transported to jail and held in lieu of $60,000 bail after treatment, Los Angeles Police Detective Bob Nelson said. Hawkins was being held in lieu of $60,000 bail.

Police said the two men are suspected of blowing up a dozen mailboxes in the San Fernando Valley and the Westside.

Woolley suffered a broken arm and cuts from metal fragments from the door of a mailbox that blew off in an explosion shortly before midnight Friday, Nelson said. Hawkins drove Woolley to the hospital in Canoga Park.

“While he was being treated, a homemade bomb fell out of his shirt,” Rogovin said. “A security guard got the bomb out of the hospital to the parking lot and the police detonated it.”

Police went to Woolley’s home in the 22400 block of Dolorosa Street in Woodland Hills, where they found and detonated four more makeshift bombs, authorities said.

Several neighbors said they were evacuated from their homes between 1 and 3:30 a.m. Friday while a police bomb squad conducted a search.

Next-door neighbor Curtis Suchomel said he had heard nighttime explosions at Woolley’s home “every four or five months. That’s been since we moved here four years ago.” He said the explosions sounded like “a cannon or a gunshot.”

Another neighbor, Daniel Huck, said the explosions became more frequent in the weeks preceding the Fourth of July holiday. “You’d hear boom! Then your ears would ring,” he said.

But the neighborhood was quiet July 4, neighbors said. “He must go somewhere else,” Huck said.

Blowing up mailboxes is a felony, punishable by imprisonment for up to seven years, police said. Nelson said the motive for the explosions appeared to be vandalism, and the two men apparently did not intend to hurt anyone.

“He’s more of a hobbyist,” Nelson said of Woolley.

Police Lt. Larry Hinrichs said there are about six unsolved mailbox bombings in the Valley and another six in the Westside during the past six months.

“As an example of how dangerous these things are, he built this thing and even he was blown up by it,” Hinrichs said.

Times photographer Boris Yaro contributed to this story.