Doris Stauffer's body was donated to science.
Doris Stauffer's body, 73, was donated to science after her death in 2013, with her family believing her remains would be used to study the effects of Alzheimer's Disease.
Instead her body was sold to the US Army for explosives testing, her son Jim told Reuters.
"She was then supposedly strapped in a chair on some sort of apparatus, and a detonation took place underneath her to basically kind of get an idea of what the human body goes through when a vehicle is hit by an IED (improvised explosive device)," he said.
"There was actually wording on this paperwork about performing this stuff.
"Performing these medical tests that may involve explosions, and we said no. We checked the 'no' box on all that."
Mrs Stauffer's family are now suing Biological Resource Centre, the company that sold her body to the US Army.
The lawsuit also included the company owner Stephen Gore.
"If I can be a little small part of his personal financial destruction, I don't care," Mr Stauffer said.
Biological Research Centre has since closed its doors after the FBI raided its facility in 2014.
Gore was sentenced to probation for selling donated body parts for profit.
He will appear in court in October, facing a civil suit from Mr Stauffer and other families whose bodies were misused.
Reader Comments
Didn't they -the military- get enough real life destroyed bodies to see the effects of IED's ?
Of course a dead body is just that, a dead body; but still there's something indecent about that kind of experiment. Almost depraved. Are other countries doing that sort of experiment I wonder. Not that it would make it justifiable mind you.
The science not withstanding, she was dead, so who cares? It's not like she was impaled on the flagpole at the Whitehouse. That particular space is being used by Lindsay Graham and Mitch McConnel recreationally.
Although highly impracticable in this day and age, I rather like the viking image of Valhalla, setting fire to a ship floating on the sea of the unknown.