Norfolk man finds World War II style grenade in backyard
NORFOLK, Va. (WAVY) — Andrew Taunton has quite the memorable keepsake after what he called a crazy Saturday afternoon.
He told 10 On Your Side he made an unexpected discovery while digging up a shrub in his backyard.
“I was finding little rocks, little river rocks and I ended up picking up one of them and was like, well that shape’s not a rock,” Taunton said.
He was holding a World War II style pineapple grenade. The top of it — where the pin should’ve been — was cut off.
Just to be safe he called the non-emergency line and was surprised by the large response.
“Ladder truck, hose truck, fire marshal ended up being out here. The bomb squad was out here. There were probably half a dozen or about a dozen cops between both sides.”
Two neighborhood boys and best friends remembered seeing that emergency response, saying the entire street was blocked off.
“I’m like sitting on this just watching the chaos unfold on my phone, recording it,” 9-year-old John Carmondy said.
Thankfully, the bomb squad marked everything as safe, but Andrew said he was actually never worried that the grenade would go off.
“If there was anything in it, there was basically no chance unless someone shot it with a gun or lit a fire next to it because once the top come off of it, it can’t really go off,” Taunton said. “There’s not really any way to cause the detonation to occur to initially make it explode.”
And because the bomb squad said everything was safe, they let Taunton keep the grenade.
But he still wondered if there were any more in his backyard. He said only time will tell.
Check with WAVY.com for more updates.
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