A Cautionary Tale

[Jeff Toorish]

While this story is not strictly about scuba, this guy did use scuba in his search for relics.

Civil War cannonball kills relic collector - Life - MSNBC.com

 

[Missdirected]

Thanks for the story Jeff. I kind of enjoyed hearing of his life. Very passionate man, like many of us divers.

 

[ScubaSpicher]

That's crazy! I did not know that cannon balls could explode 140 years later...

 

[ruready7]

Yeah who knew that the cannonballs were still able to detonate after all those years.

 

[SteveAD]

Yeah who knew that the cannonballs were still able to detonate after all those years.

The only time you know that something that "used to be a bomb" is safe is after it has blown up or the EOD guys disassemble it. ---But the EOD guys usually blow them up.

 

[Cyber_Ghost]

There are a number (getting larger still) of Qassam rockets on the Ashkelon (Israel) shoreline, some of them un-exploded, a few folks I dived with decided to try and surface one of them... probably the fastest I've ever swam in my life (in the opposite direction).

What is it with people and things that go Boom???

 

[mikerault]

They are still pulling mines (floating ones) out of various harbors in Europe. Not to mention the unexploded WWI and WWII ordenance found daily (well, maybe weekly) in various European cities. I was in Munich and we had just passed a building site when I asked about it and the local said "Yes, they had to stop digging because of an unexploded bomb just last week". Not to mention the millions (at last count 2 million) of land mines still out there and active.

Be careful what you bring home.

Mike

 

[SparticleBrane]

So the moral of the story is: Don't try to disassemble bombs without the proper training.

 

[syntaxerrorsix]

So the moral of the story is: Don't try to disassemble bombs without the proper training.

I have had some of that particular training.

The phrase "blow in place" comes to mind immediately.

 

[1_T_Submariner]

Jeff, Thanks for the link. Good story.