mr_larry
Hero Member
- Jun 22, 2010
- 504
- 169
- 🏆 Honorable Mentions:
- 1
- Detector(s) used
- Minelab Explorer SE Pro
- Primary Interest:
- Metal Detecting
**UPDATED**
I went back yesterday and found some fragments of the grenade. I also inserted the photos into the text so that it reads a little better!
Here is the news clip recorded from my tv:
************************************************** ***********
okay...
So I began my day driving by some sidewalk tear-out work I have been hitting but the guys were working on newly developed land. I continued on to a park I wanted to hit but there were a ton of pre-schoolers on the field. I kept driving and went by Baker Beach. There were a ton of volunteers picking up trash. Next stop: Golden Gate Park.
I was driving around looking for any signs of recent work but didn't see anything. I did see massive piles of mulch stacked up at the Polo Fields.
Next thing I knew I was at a spot where I met up with Chris (Nicasian), MT and SF Mike last Wednesday. I pulled over and parked and it looked to me like they had cleared a little more brush away from a homeless encampment that they have been cleaning up. I decided to swing on it.
There is a bunch of iron in this place but MT and SF Mike have pulled some silver out of there. I pulled up a big metal plate and found this underneath it. It is a Bromo bottle and there are no chips or cracks in it. Very pretty bottle:
I wasn't there but 20 minutes, and about two minutes after the Bromo bottle I get a signal that sounds interesting enough for me to dig. Kinda nulling out but a squeek of a high tone in there. I grab the Lesche and carve a plug even though the dirt is pretty loose. It is held together by small roots.
I pull the loose plug out and plunge my hands into the hole to pull out the rest of the dirt and I grab on to a large heavy object. As any of us would do, I hold the object in my left hand and start brushing away the dirt with my right. Mind you I am on my knees. After about 5-10 seconds of vigorous rubbing, I see the dimples in the grenade. I dropped the thing on the ground and dropped my headphones and hauled ass up the hill to get away from it. As I am running up the hill I see a park gardener driving by and I start yelling at him. He stops and I tell him the story. He comes down and looks at it and says, "Yeah, that looks like a grenade." He gets his boss to come down and his boss says, "Definitely a grenade." He gets on his phone and calls the cops.
This was the first picture I took while waiting for the boss gardener to come down. In the clear area just right of center. I didn't want to get too close:
After about fifteen minutes with it not blowing up I came in close for this photo:
e park guys were fantastic by the way. They know of us, don't mind us at all, and they are funny guys.
Next the first cop shows up, looks at it and says, "Yep, that is a hand grenade." He gets on the radio and asks whoever how far everyone should stand back and they say 50 feet. He starts putting up crime scene tape. Here is a photo of the tape extending down to the road. All I can hear is sirens in every direction.
All of a sudden multiple cop cars start pulling up, fire trucks, an ambulance and a "stringer" for the Channel 2 news. Right after that they close down the street from both ends.
After about 10-15 minutes the bomb squad arrives. The guy in the photo is the park supervisor who has been working on clearing out that homeless encampment.
The bomb squad guys start asking me a bunch of questions about the grenade and I say, "Would you like to see a picture?" I show them the close up photo and he says, "Oh yeah, That's a Mark II grenade."
The next hour or two goes by really slowly. Earlier the stringer guy had tried to talk to me and I blew him off. We were the only two civilians on the scene so I went over to talk to him and he says he is with KTVU channel 2. Since that is the news I watch every day I tell him I'll give him a quick statement.
They bust out the robot (I have video of this thing) and then I have to go over to the guy controlling the robot to help him find it. We get results in about five minutes. Now the robot is parked directly in front of the grenade. Next, the other bomb squad guy, the same guy who eventually puts on the suit to place the explosives, this guy goes up with a shovel and digs a big hole about ten feet away from the grenade. Although they told me to back off at this point, I think they had the robot pick up the grenade and drop it into the hole the guy dug.
More time passes. The lead bomb guy is on the radio with headquarters and they need to clear the area. They call in the motor bikes and the explosives. The explosives arrive with the motorcycle team and an FBI guy. The explosives arrive in the back of this pickup truck in a container in back. The explosives do not travel with the bomb squad.
After the motorcycle guys clear the area, the guy suits up in the bomb suit and drags some cable in his right hand from the command post all the way to the grenade.
Meanwhile, my car is parked about 75 feet from where this thing is gonna blow. You can see it way down on the left. The grenade is across the street and maybe 75 feet from the road.
Up until this point I have been standing around on the sidewalk about 100 yards away from the grenade. As they are getting ready to detonate the thing, they put me into the Park Patrol car with the head of the GGP park patrol and his partner. They have their police radio on. The guy in the bomb suit comes back. Over the radio they ask everyone to turn on their sirens. Sirens are going off all around me. Next thing I hear is "Fire in the hole" repeated three times. Immediately after that, BOOM!! It was loud! Dirt shot up straight in the air about 40 feet. As I'm still sitting in the car with the police radio, dispatchers start saying. "A caller called in about an explosion in Golden Gate Park."
So after they blow the thing up a cop drives up to where we are parked and he tells me the bomb technician guy wants to talk to me. I get out of the car. He asks me to tell him my story again. When he hears the part where I dropped the grenade on the ground his eyes got big and he says, "You dropped the grenade?" He proceeds to tell me it was definitely a live grenade. Next time, don't pick up a live grenade, etc. He also asked me if I heard any other signals that could have been grenades. "Did you hear anything else that sounded like this one did?"
I explain to the guy that it gave off a crappy signal and that there are signals every time you swing the coil. I kept trying to explain to the guy that I wouldn't have picked it up if I knew it was a grenade.
That's my story and I'm sticking to it!
Sorry I don't know how to insert the photos into the text so that the pictures have more context.
************************************************** ************************************
Updated:
I went back to the spot where they blew up the grenade and I recovered some fragments. See the picture below:
I went back yesterday and found some fragments of the grenade. I also inserted the photos into the text so that it reads a little better!
Here is the news clip recorded from my tv:
************************************************** ***********
okay...
So I began my day driving by some sidewalk tear-out work I have been hitting but the guys were working on newly developed land. I continued on to a park I wanted to hit but there were a ton of pre-schoolers on the field. I kept driving and went by Baker Beach. There were a ton of volunteers picking up trash. Next stop: Golden Gate Park.
I was driving around looking for any signs of recent work but didn't see anything. I did see massive piles of mulch stacked up at the Polo Fields.
Next thing I knew I was at a spot where I met up with Chris (Nicasian), MT and SF Mike last Wednesday. I pulled over and parked and it looked to me like they had cleared a little more brush away from a homeless encampment that they have been cleaning up. I decided to swing on it.
There is a bunch of iron in this place but MT and SF Mike have pulled some silver out of there. I pulled up a big metal plate and found this underneath it. It is a Bromo bottle and there are no chips or cracks in it. Very pretty bottle:
I wasn't there but 20 minutes, and about two minutes after the Bromo bottle I get a signal that sounds interesting enough for me to dig. Kinda nulling out but a squeek of a high tone in there. I grab the Lesche and carve a plug even though the dirt is pretty loose. It is held together by small roots.
I pull the loose plug out and plunge my hands into the hole to pull out the rest of the dirt and I grab on to a large heavy object. As any of us would do, I hold the object in my left hand and start brushing away the dirt with my right. Mind you I am on my knees. After about 5-10 seconds of vigorous rubbing, I see the dimples in the grenade. I dropped the thing on the ground and dropped my headphones and hauled ass up the hill to get away from it. As I am running up the hill I see a park gardener driving by and I start yelling at him. He stops and I tell him the story. He comes down and looks at it and says, "Yeah, that looks like a grenade." He gets his boss to come down and his boss says, "Definitely a grenade." He gets on his phone and calls the cops.
This was the first picture I took while waiting for the boss gardener to come down. In the clear area just right of center. I didn't want to get too close:
After about fifteen minutes with it not blowing up I came in close for this photo:
e park guys were fantastic by the way. They know of us, don't mind us at all, and they are funny guys.
Next the first cop shows up, looks at it and says, "Yep, that is a hand grenade." He gets on the radio and asks whoever how far everyone should stand back and they say 50 feet. He starts putting up crime scene tape. Here is a photo of the tape extending down to the road. All I can hear is sirens in every direction.
All of a sudden multiple cop cars start pulling up, fire trucks, an ambulance and a "stringer" for the Channel 2 news. Right after that they close down the street from both ends.
After about 10-15 minutes the bomb squad arrives. The guy in the photo is the park supervisor who has been working on clearing out that homeless encampment.
The bomb squad guys start asking me a bunch of questions about the grenade and I say, "Would you like to see a picture?" I show them the close up photo and he says, "Oh yeah, That's a Mark II grenade."
The next hour or two goes by really slowly. Earlier the stringer guy had tried to talk to me and I blew him off. We were the only two civilians on the scene so I went over to talk to him and he says he is with KTVU channel 2. Since that is the news I watch every day I tell him I'll give him a quick statement.
They bust out the robot (I have video of this thing) and then I have to go over to the guy controlling the robot to help him find it. We get results in about five minutes. Now the robot is parked directly in front of the grenade. Next, the other bomb squad guy, the same guy who eventually puts on the suit to place the explosives, this guy goes up with a shovel and digs a big hole about ten feet away from the grenade. Although they told me to back off at this point, I think they had the robot pick up the grenade and drop it into the hole the guy dug.
More time passes. The lead bomb guy is on the radio with headquarters and they need to clear the area. They call in the motor bikes and the explosives. The explosives arrive with the motorcycle team and an FBI guy. The explosives arrive in the back of this pickup truck in a container in back. The explosives do not travel with the bomb squad.
After the motorcycle guys clear the area, the guy suits up in the bomb suit and drags some cable in his right hand from the command post all the way to the grenade.
Meanwhile, my car is parked about 75 feet from where this thing is gonna blow. You can see it way down on the left. The grenade is across the street and maybe 75 feet from the road.
Up until this point I have been standing around on the sidewalk about 100 yards away from the grenade. As they are getting ready to detonate the thing, they put me into the Park Patrol car with the head of the GGP park patrol and his partner. They have their police radio on. The guy in the bomb suit comes back. Over the radio they ask everyone to turn on their sirens. Sirens are going off all around me. Next thing I hear is "Fire in the hole" repeated three times. Immediately after that, BOOM!! It was loud! Dirt shot up straight in the air about 40 feet. As I'm still sitting in the car with the police radio, dispatchers start saying. "A caller called in about an explosion in Golden Gate Park."
So after they blow the thing up a cop drives up to where we are parked and he tells me the bomb technician guy wants to talk to me. I get out of the car. He asks me to tell him my story again. When he hears the part where I dropped the grenade on the ground his eyes got big and he says, "You dropped the grenade?" He proceeds to tell me it was definitely a live grenade. Next time, don't pick up a live grenade, etc. He also asked me if I heard any other signals that could have been grenades. "Did you hear anything else that sounded like this one did?"
I explain to the guy that it gave off a crappy signal and that there are signals every time you swing the coil. I kept trying to explain to the guy that I wouldn't have picked it up if I knew it was a grenade.
That's my story and I'm sticking to it!
Sorry I don't know how to insert the photos into the text so that the pictures have more context.
************************************************** ************************************
Updated:
I went back to the spot where they blew up the grenade and I recovered some fragments. See the picture below:
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Made for an exciting day, yeah?
