In the unlikely, but evidently possible event you encounter what appears to be an undetonated explosive while enjoying the summer weather — as a resident in unincorporated Antioch did Thursday — authorities in Lake County encourage you to alert local law enforcement as soon as possible.
A sharp object protruding from the ground caught unincorporated Antioch resident Lauren Intzekiotis’ eye as her son biked around their yard, she said Thursday, and she soon unearthed what Waukegan bomb squad technicians and responding police believe was a “live and active” anti-tank rocket, seemingly from the World War II era.
Police don’t know how the round Intzekiotis discovered in the 25000 block of West Third Street in the Warriner’s Shores subdivision ended up in somebody’s yard.
But however it got there, the Waukegan bomb squad believed the device could have seriously endangered anyone in its immediate proximity, according to Lake County sheriff’s office spokesman Chris Covelli.
” (The technicians) secured it from the scene and transported it to an area where they were safely able to detonate the device,” Covelli said Friday. “But based on their analysis, they do believe it had a charge. With that being the case and this device being as old as it is, it’s extremely unstable and certainly could have presented a danger to the homeowner.”
Covelli said police believe that, “most likely (the rocket) was at one point illegally possessed, obviously there long before the homeowner moved into her home.”
Lake County Veterans Assistance Commission Superintendent Andrew Tangen saw reports and images of the discovery on local news reports, and he said Friday that the rusty, mud-caked rocket, “looks like a German round, but it might not be.”
As soldiers returned home from fighting in World War II and even the Korean War, Tangen said it was not uncommon for soldiers to bring war-related keepsakes, such as unused explosives or rifles, back home with them.
“The guys who brought home the grenades, or the mortar rounds, or whatever they were, they’d put them in a box and then put them in their basement,” Tangen said. “But they were still active.”
Decades later, the discovery of such materials has sometimes ended in catastrophe. A Lake County, Indiana, man was killed and his two children were seriously injured on May 20 when an old grenade exploded as they were sorting through their grandfather’s belongings.
Any devices with unexploded ordnance remaining, Tangen explained, pose a huge risk of accidental detonation, particularly the older they are.
“The longer a piece of munition, especially an explosive device is still around, the fuse and the safety mechanisms degrade,” Tangen said. “They rust, they wear down, they break down. And if you move it or you jostle it, it’ll just explode. (The device) could have been a war souvenir.”
Shortly after the scene at her home cleared Thursday afternoon, Intzekiotis said she “saw this little metal tip sticking out” of the ground, and that she didn’t want her kids to step on it.
She did not know for sure at the time of the imminent danger it may have posed, so she took a photo of the rocket head and uploaded it into Google Images to see what it might be. A while later, she decided she’d better call the police.
“Google Images first pulled up ‘yams,’ and I was like, ‘That’s not a yam,'” she told the News-Sun on Thursday.
Intzekiotis surmised that after the removal of a section of overgrown brush, recent rains and the passing of many years, the rocket “probably moved in the earth.”
“You find something weird and decide to call the cops instead of waiting to be blown up,” Intzekiotis said.
Covelli agreed.
“We’re grateful that it didn’t, and it worked out where it was able to be safely transported without the homeowner or anybody else being injured,” Covelli added. “We would encourage anybody, as unusual of a situation this is, that finds a device that resembles a weapon of war to immediately stop manipulating it and contact law enforcement and authorities so proper resources can investigate and safely remove the device.”
