You never know what you might find in dad’s garage.
One woman made an explosive discovery at her late dad’s place in Otis, a rural hamlet a few miles east of Lincoln City.
The woman was cleaning out her deceased father’s garage Friday alongside her husband when they discovered what law enforcement officers later described as an intact and apparently still active World War II grenade in what appeared to be its original packaging.
The woman, who was in the process of clearing out the garage because the home had just sold, called the Lincoln County Sheriff’s Office and described the situation.
“I was skeptical,” said Sgt. Patrick Dougherty, one of the officers who responded to the house in Otis, which sits just off of Oregon 18 not far from the coast.
Dougherty said these types of calls aren’t atypical, but the devices are usually inert so they aren’t active.
The woman’s father had a lot of military memorabilia, though Dougherty said he didn’t know if the man served in the military.
The woman told authorities her dad had another World War II MKIIA1 fragmentation grenade, but that one was deactivated and had been fashioned into a lighter.
But he also, apparently, had the potentially still active one that was sitting in the box sin the corner of the garage.
Dougherty said after evaluating the device, officials were concerned enough to call in the state bomb squad.
The Oregon State Police Bomb Squad made the 50-minute trek through the Coast Range from McMinnville and took the device away after about an hour of work. Dougherty said the bomb investigator who responded said he’d only twice before seen an active device.
Bomb investigators will conduct a more thorough investigation to determine if the grenade’s innards still contained the “necessary internal components to be deadly.”
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