PA Firefighters Respond after Explosive Catch
By Michelle Merlin
Source The Morning Call (Allentown, Pa.)
June 30 -- The Allentown bomb squad was called to the banks of the Lehigh River early Saturday morning, where a fisherman reeled in a World War II-era grenade.
The bomb squad safely blew up the device in a nearby field at Bucky Boyle Park, said Chad Ege, a firefighter and bomb technician for the Allentown Fire Department’s bomb squad.
Ege said the fisherman’s hook snagged the grenade along the bottom of the river at about 3 a.m.
He said it’s the type of grenade that would have been put on a rifle.
The grenade was X-rayed, but authorities couldn’t determine whether it was live, Capt. Charles Roca said.
Ege said it was in bad condition, so the bomb squad put their own explosive on the grenade and detonated it.
“It had been there for a long time, just based off of its condition,” he said. “Given its condition, we weren’t moving it.”
It’s not uncommon for such grenades to turn up. Ege said said the bomb squad responds to calls about them several times a year.
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