A Quebec man was recovering in hospital Friday after a package blew up in his face at his Montreal-area home.

The man, who is in his 50s, was leaving his Repentigny home at around 10:30 a.m. when he saw the package outside his front door.

Police said the man thought nothing of the package at the time, since he recently celebrated a birthday.

He brought the package back inside the house to open it, when it exploded. He suffered injuries to his face and both hands. He was taken to Pierre-Le Gardeur hospital.

His neighbours told CTV News they were surprised the man would be the target of such an attack

"It's a shock for the neighbourhood," Julien Hamel told CTV Montreal's Caroline Van Vlaardingen.

Dr. Luc Bilodeau, another area resident, was at his home when he heard a thud and felt a vibration. "I thought it might be a truck having problems," he said.

Police and firefighters erected a security perimeter around the house while attempting to determine what exactly was inside the package.

A similar incident nearly took place in Brossard earlier Friday morning as a couple in their 60s found a suspicious object underneath their car on Salvador Street.

The Surete du Quebec bomb squad was called in, and it evacuated the immediate area before trying to detonate the device with a robot.

It was ultimately determined to be a fake bomb, but Longueuil police are still investigating the incident.

With a report from CTV Montreal