Team Infidel
Forum Spin Doctor
PACE, Fla. — An 8-year-old boy and his friend found something dangerous while searching for buried treasure with a metal detector — a live, World War II-era hand grenade.
Sidney Mathis and his friend found nails, bolts and a toy Hot Wheels car by sweeping the detector over a grassy field near their apartment complex on Thursday.
But it was their other find that alarmed Sidney’s father, Chris Mathis. The man arrived home Thursday to find the boys about to put the grenade into a bucket of water.
He grabbed the grenade and dangled it outside the window of his sport utility vehicle as he drove away from the apartment complex.
Mathis eventually had second thoughts.
“I hit a bump and that’s about the time I realized moving the grenade wasn’t the brightest thing to do,” he said.
Two members of an Air Force explosives unit from nearby Hurlburt Field in the Florida Panhandle took the grenade and destroyed it Friday morning.
Sidney’s treasure hunting days aren’t over, but his father hopes he learned a lesson.
“We told him he could find jewelry and things like that, but he couldn’t play with bombs,” Chris Mathis said.
Sidney Mathis and his friend found nails, bolts and a toy Hot Wheels car by sweeping the detector over a grassy field near their apartment complex on Thursday.
But it was their other find that alarmed Sidney’s father, Chris Mathis. The man arrived home Thursday to find the boys about to put the grenade into a bucket of water.
He grabbed the grenade and dangled it outside the window of his sport utility vehicle as he drove away from the apartment complex.
Mathis eventually had second thoughts.
“I hit a bump and that’s about the time I realized moving the grenade wasn’t the brightest thing to do,” he said.
Two members of an Air Force explosives unit from nearby Hurlburt Field in the Florida Panhandle took the grenade and destroyed it Friday morning.
Sidney’s treasure hunting days aren’t over, but his father hopes he learned a lesson.
“We told him he could find jewelry and things like that, but he couldn’t play with bombs,” Chris Mathis said.