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2011 Slush Pile

This item was recently submitted by a reader.
Should I include it in the archive?
Vote to tell me what *you* think!

Explosive library!

2011 Reader Submission
Pending Acceptance

A lady in Orlando, Florida, had a very interesting pair of bookends --WWII-vintage live hand grenades, property of her deceased husband, who had fought in the war. They had been using the grenades as bookends for years.

A neighbour was given one of the grenades, and he did what (hopefully) nobody would do if given a rather authentic-feeling hand grenade: He pulled the pin on it!!

Realizing that the grenade in question was the real McCoy, he put the pin back, left the grenade in the street, and called the police.

When the agents realized what they were dealing with, they called the bomb squad, took away the other grenade from the lady, and performed a controlled detonation of both grenades in a nearby field. The explosions created a 2-foot crater.

Double honorable mention, because (1) you have to be REALLY reckless in order to use live hand grenades as bookends, what with the ravages of time, corrosion, and perhaps the instability of the explosive charge (and to think that the husband, presumably, had first-hand experience of those things!), and (2) you have to be REALLY REALLY reckless to pull the pin on what appears to be, from the weight and feel of it, a real hand grenade!!

It was fortunate that nobody got hurt, but the people involved in the incident were really playing with fire there!

Submitted on 01/19/2011

Submitted by: Jose Beltran Escavy
Reference: http://www.clickorlando.com/news/26444652/detail.html (Jan. 11, 2011)

Copyright © 2011 DarwinAwards.com

>> Moderator Scores <<

Bruce said:
Definitely Toss: No Self-Selection
Thanks, Jose, but such stories are rather common. We get stories on a fairly regular basis about people using munitions from wars, usually with much worse results than in this story. We've gotten stories of people finding explosives left over from WWII, the wars in Vietnam, Korea, etc. and even the US Civil War. On top of all that, the wife likely had no idea that the grenades were still live, and the neighbor did exactly the right thing by calling the police. Besides, would you know how to tell if a grenade is real by its weight & feel if you're not in the active military? Even if you were, would you know how a WWII era grenade felt & weighed?


Candi said:
Definitely Toss: No Self-Selection
What Bruce said.


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