Ashbourne school evacuated as boy takes grenade to show-and-tell
www.bbc.com
Head teacher Jeanette Hart says she placed the grenade behind a "substantial" tree and called 999.
  • IphtashuFitz@lemmy.world
    English
    23·
    1 month ago

    Dating myself… This brings back bad memories…

    In the 70’s in elementary school I had a classmate who had a brother about two years younger than we were. In 1978 when the brother was only 8 years old he was killed in a freak accident. The family had moved to a new house whose previous owner collected war memorabilia. The brother found a hand grenade that had somehow been left behind. It was live and blew up in his hands.

    Ten years later my former classmate was killed on board the Pan Am 103 bombing.

    Archived New York Times article that is mostly about my classmate but mentions the death of the younger brother as well: https://archive.is/ykLi0

    Those were the only two children in that family. I still think about them all from time to time to this very day…

    • pulsewidth@lemmy.worldEnglish
      5·
      1 month ago

      Dude that is rough, no wonder it still hits you from time to time. Those poor parents.

      I know you are probably just repeating the terms you were given at the time, but I would classify that ‘freak accident’ of a kid finding a live hand grenade left behind by an arms collector selling his house instead as ‘wreckless negligence’. The grenade did exactly what it was supposed to do, the responsible adult(s) failed enormously.

      Aside - I’m absolutely not trying to chide you, I just don’t know how else to get my point across that we pass along these stories sometimes without questioning the framing of the story (I catch myself doing it).

    • KayLeadfoot@fedia.io
      2·
      1 month ago

      I think this is the sentiment of anyone who has had to carry grenades. Whoever invented those was a bastard’s bastard.

  • defunct_punk@lemmy.worldEnglish
    132·
    1 month ago

    Lol reminds me of playing soldiers with my friends as a kid lobbing real neutralized surplus grenades at each other, basically ~3lb chunks of steel at that point. Let the kids play with grenades!!

  • PattyMcB@lemmy.worldEnglish
    10·
    1 month ago

    Reminds me of that scene from Hot Fuzz where the old guy had a naval mine in his shed