A US couple, Kelly and Shannon Thomas, found a WWI-era military ordnance while digging in a flowerbed at their home in Maryland’s Harford County on Tuesday.
The Thomas family left the hazardous object in place overnight and reported the item to the Harford County Sheriff’s Office on Wednesday, one day following its discovery, according to a press release by the office of the Maryland State Fire Marshal.
A team of bomb technicians from the office of the State Fire Marshal, requested by the Sheriff’s Office, determined that the object was a WWI-era 37 MKI projectile.
“The unexploded military ordnance was determined to be a 37 MKI projectile. The ordnance was determined it had not been fired, and the fusing mechanism was still intact,” the office of the Maryland State Fire Marshal said, adding that technicians succeeded in safely disposing of “the potentially dangerous round on the scene”.
Senior Deputy State Fire Marshal Oliver Alkire said it was not the first time these types of dangerous materials have been discovered in Maryland, attributing the findings to the nearby Aberdeen Proving Ground (APG) US Army facility, which has a long history of weapons testing.
“Their base is right along the shoreline where they’ve tested ammunition for many years,” Alkire said, quoted by The Military Times. “Typically, we’ll find ordnance on the shores after a heavy rain.”
The official said that such devices, which refer to WWI and WWII eras, “pose the same threat as the day they were originally manufactured”.
