Grenade safely removed from Pasadena neighborhood

PASADENA, Md. - The unsuspecting lady walking her dog along 12th Street in Pasadena may have spotted the cola can, the discarded vitamin bottle or even the fluorescent BGE caution sign, but she couldn’t miss what looked like a real grenade.

"My son had walked up there and the cops had told him that he couldn't go any farther because if it exploded then that would be..."
"Shrapnel."
"Shrapnel," said Twila Tyler who lives just down the street.

Anne Arundel County Fire Division Chief Keith Swindle says they weren’t taking any chances.
 

What's the concern? According to the Federation of American Scientists, a live fragmentation grenade has a wound radius of about 15 meters and a blast fragmentation radius of about 200 meters.

"It would be devastating to anyone in the area or especially the individual close to the device.  We treat the device as if it's live.  Until it's rendered safe and put in an area where it can't affect anyone, we treat it as a live grenade."

That meant bringing in the bomb squad and some high-tech equipment to deal with the device.

"Then they had the little robot that was going down the road checking for the grenade and any bombs," said Tyler.

The experts ended up doing what they do best.  

They blew up the device, and while no one’s quite sure if it was real or not, it certainly made for an interesting afternoon.

Anne Arundel County fire officials say it’s not really uncommon for people to report finding grenades in vacant or abandoned homes, or as part of an estate, but they rarely turn up on the side of the road.

The case is still under investigation.