Note Bene

[pecunium]

This, my friends, is why one doesn't play with UXO (Unexploded Ordninace).

Part of a teacher's hand was blown off when a 40 mm round the instructor used as a paperweight on his desk exploded in his classroom.

Robert Colla struck the round with an object Monday afternoon while teaching 20 to 25 students at the Ventura Adult Education Center on Valentine Road...

"It was just a horrible accident," said Dennis Huston, who teaches computer design alongside Colla. Huston said he had his back turned to Colla and was only about three feet away when he heard a loud bang.

Colla found the 40 mm round while hunting years ago, Huston said. He used it as a paperweight and "obviously he didn't think the round was live," Huston said."

AP via SFGate

Accident? Yes, sort of.

Me, I'll pick stuff up, if I know what it is. Old .50 cal round... sure. I'll eyeball the primer, and if it's dented, I'll put it right back down.

Smoke grenade, no pin? No problem.

Bullet, sure.

Shell...

No Fucking Way.

Shells, have fuses. Fuses can be tempermental. When the shell is fired the fuse is set. Some are impact (viz. the 40mm in the story above) and for whatever reason they didn't get hit hard enough to go off.

The guy is lucky he only lost parts of his hand. Pieces of that could have killed him, or one of the students in the room.

Comments

[wetdryvac.livejournal.com]

That may just be in the top five stupid things I've read about this year. That the stupidity is dufold - possession plus intentional impact? - Special.

No-one from that room's going to have the same quality of hearing they did before, either. Bloody clever.

[pnh.livejournal.com]

I'm disgusted by the neener-neener ha-ha-ha reaction, to this, of everyone I'm reading on line.

Or, alternately, I'm delighted to know that everyone with whom I'm acquainted is so perfectly clueful that they never, ever did anything stupid, and they therefore have a permission slip to greet anyone else's misfortune with maximally cruel laughter.

Or, alternately, people suck.

And to think I get asked why I don't much post on ML any more. Gosh, can't imagine.

[dsgood.livejournal.com]

I was raised to be careful around dangerous machinery. I've mostly done that, and I would have considered that shell to be dangerous machinery.

But some people raised the same way have made interesting "I know it's safe, I don't have to check" mistakes.

[patgreene.livejournal.com]

I don't get around much online, really, so this is the first I've heard of this. But yeah, I could see myself picking up something like a shell -- and not knowing any better -- thinking that since it had not exploded that it *would not* explode and keeping it as a paperweight.

Now, of course, I know better.

Poor guy.

On the larger issue of the Darwin Award mentality that seems to pop-up everywhere online these days, there does seem to be simply a great deal of gratuitous cruelty online in a lot of contexts, and this is only one.

So maybe it's just that "people suck online."

[pecunium.livejournal.com]

Hrmn... I seem to have done this badly then.

I know why he picked it up, I am assuming he didn't know any better, that having seen it on the ground someplace he assumed it was safe.

It wasn't.

It isn't as if those who ought to know better don't screw this up either. The first fatality we had in Bosnia was a Staff Sergeant who picked up a landmine from the side of the road.

If I gave the impression I was gloating, or somehow taking a schadenfreude sort of pleasure from it, well I did it wrong (and the moralising at the end, well perhaps it plays better when I'm giving the class in how to deal with that sort of stuff to people who are deploying, and might be more likely to see something like a spent RPG round and elect to pick it up instead of calling the engineers, I don't know).

It was intended as just what I said it was, a little note. There are several places, some not so far from here, where such things are not uncommon, and I don't want any of my friends to make the same mistake.

TK

[pecunium.livejournal.com]

It was probably ignorance. From the rest of the story he was trying to kill a bug. I doubt he knew enough to realise the thing might still go off.

We have to pound (and keep pounding) into soldiers' heads that they need to leave anything they don't know is safe, alone.

So on that score it's not as stupid as all that.

TK

[wetdryvac.livejournal.com]

*nods*

That does make sense, both context wise and from a more general, ignorance not equal to stupidity, standpoint. I still have an extremely negative reaction to his actions putting those around him at risk, but I have to admit some part of me automatically expects people to understand safety factors, particularly of things they possess.

Definitely not a good place to start from when stories like this are proving me wrong. Thanks for pointing out the flaw in my thinking.

[goshawk.livejournal.com]

::shakes head:: I can see making that mistake. The only reason I know better is because I was taught better--as a cadet I got to tour the ordinance storage at CFB Comox once (naturally, us 14-year-old walking disasters weren't allowed near anything more volatile than signal flares) and we got the full safety briefing about things we might find Out There.

One story that stuck with me was of a woman in Europe who'd been using an unexploded shell from WWII as a door-prop; another was a man who discovered a phosphorus flare on his beach and decided to drive it to a police station. The woman's nephew was a military man and thankfully got her to leave the shell alone until it was picked up; the man hit a pothole. I mean, stupid innocent mistakes. People don't think something that looks so old and beat up could be dangerous.

With stories like this showing up, I think this sort of safety should be a basic part of the "don't touch needles or guns, don't talk to strangers" speech.

[feonixrift.livejournal.com]

I can't see making that mistake, ever. Not when I was four years old, not now. Then again, I grew up around guns. Not messing with unexploded explosives is simple common sense to me. Treating anything that I haven't fully checked myself as loaded is common sense to me, has been since before I asked my mom why there was a bullet hole in the kitchen ceiling. I didn't do big fireworks as a kid -- same reason. Explosives explode, with or without control. They have to be stored right, treated right, and even then are *always* risky.

Didn't take seeing a house trailer explode to convince me that gas stoves were dangerous either, although it sure drove the point home. Ignorance isn't stupidity, sure, and most people grow up so far from such things that they may not know even the most basic of parameters. But knowing where the holes in your knowledge are is basic self preservation, and ordinance is pretty clear about being intended to cause and therefore capable of causing damage.

[quintus.livejournal.com]

Reminds me of a story from the Wehrmacht in the 1940's, a new recruit scaring the crap out of his feldwebel by pounding a ranging stake into the ground with a 'dud' Panzerfaust...

[pindar.livejournal.com]

How many times I have heard....

"..but honestly Sir, it just went off in my hands...."?

[pecunium.livejournal.com]

On the flip side is the Whermacht (and others, but it was the Whermacht of whom I first heard it) story of shocking new troops in the line by placing a hand grenade (pine removed, fuse going) on top of one's helmet.

Because the force will take the path of least resistance, 90+ percent of the blast would go away from the point of contact, and the helmet sheilds the wearer from the fragments headed down.

It works best (if one wishes to have repeat audiences) with grenades of lesser fragmentation, but it works.

Ah! the insouciant carelessness of the folks who've seen too much.

TK

[cakmpls.livejournal.com]

I'm sure reading a lot of implied "it can't happen to me" in the comments here. Well, my father was an NRA-certified firearms safety instructor for the Boy Scouts, and ... let's just say, "It can happen to you." (No one was injured in the making of this example.)

[pecunium.livejournal.com]

I recall, many moons ago, having a negligent discharge.

I was at a range, firing a revolver, single action. As I was bring the weapon to target (having cocked it after recoil) it went off.

Oh, the shame of it. The ragged scatter of holes in that part of the ceiling was some relief (not only was I not the only one who had done such a careless thing, but there was lots of cover to keep anyone from knowing I had just done it).

An ex-girlfriend's father has a long scar down the outside of his right thigh, from screwing up teaching himself quickdraw with a .22.

Without a lot of care and attention, it can happen to anyone.

TK

Looking through the database in head

[killslowly.livejournal.com]

I only recall two incidents of negligence. My first one was at Ft. Drum in the late 80s.

We were patrolling, and I slipped on some ice. Like any dumb ass new troop, eager for action, I had my finger on the trigger, and a blank round went off.

Needless to say, I was mortified. First of all, I could have injured one of my teammates. Second, I could have given away our position, and third, I could have injured myself. Regardless of the fact that it was a blank, I was crushed.

Second dumb ass situation, was not too long ago, trying out a new pistol. I fired 99 rounds out of a glock 19, and realized that my trigger finger was getting tired.

Changed hands, pointed at the target and fired. I was surprised that a round went off.

I should have not been surprised. I should have known that there was a round. I should have cleared the weapon, I should have done a chamber check, I should.....

Never, could I understand how come people cause injury or death when suddenly, the gun they were "cleaning" goes off.

After that little incident with the glock, I know better. This little incident put me in a cloudy mood for over two weeks. I just could not understand the level of ignorance and stupidity I exhibited.

But then again, after almost 17 years of training, practice and more training and practice, I should know better.

I feel very sad for that poor teacher. But also very angry for having such a dangerous device in a classroom full of students.

Can you imagine how everybody would feel if a student did that?

"cool paperweight teach" Student grabs it and chucks it at another student for fun. You can imagine the rest (and I know, the chances of that 40mm grenade going of are probably 1 in 100, but when Mr. Murphy is around...)

The teacher of course would be charged with endangering the welfare of children, possession of a dangerous device, etc.. etc.. etc..

Maybe he was lucky it only cost him his hand.

Re: Looking through the database in head

[pecunium.livejournal.com]

I think, from the story, it was a 40mm AA shell. That makes a better paperweight than a 40mm grenade.

I don't know that I'd say it was lucky that he was injured, but certainly it was lucky it wasn't any worse.

TK

[michael-b-lee.livejournal.com]

There was a story back last year (I regret that I can't put up a link, but I read this in the local paper) of a family that had a live WWII-era 5-inch shell in their front yard. They had no idea where it had come from (it came with the house when they bought it) and they were using it as a *lawn ornament* for lack of anything else better to do with it. Happily for all concerned, their nephew, who was on leave from Iraq, came over to visit, saw what was on the lawn and promptly called UXD personnel from the local army base to come and get the shell.

Re: Looking through the database in head

[killslowly.livejournal.com]

Ah,

No grenade. Well then, that's different.

Re: Looking through the database in head

[(Anonymous)]

I am a collector of German WWII ordinance. Specifically 8.8cm FLAK/PAK shells and fuzing. I ordered a circa 1943 point detonating AZ23 fuze on ebay and was surprised to find that the fellow in France had shipped me a LIVE one! Now the charge in the fuze is low order but STILL! You really MUST be careful with this stuff. A friend of mine in Holland builds the best cutaways in the world. If you saw his picture you would notice that his right eye is missing along with a lot of his face. He tried to deactivate the fuze from a WWII German 20mm cannon shell. Nearly got killed.