According to law enforcement officials, a live grenade in a grandfather's possessions exploded in Lake County, Indiana, killing a man and injuring two of his teen children.
Saturday at approximately 6:30 p.m., officers responded to reports of a detonation in Lake of the Four Seasons, according to the Lake County Sheriff's Department.
Grenade Detonates in Indiana Home
Investigators learned that a grenade was discovered while a family was sifting through a grandfather's possessions at a residence on Lakeshore Drive. Someone then withdrew the grenade's pin, causing it to detonate, Fox News reported.
His two children, a female aged 18 and a male aged 14, were transported to a nearby hospital for treatment of shrapnel wounds. Porter County, a neighboring county, dispatched its bomb squad to assist in securing the area and determining whether additional explosives were concealed within the residence.
According to a Facebook post by the sheriff's office, they discovered an unresponsive man and two injured teenagers at the site. It was unknown whether the explosive detonated inside the home.
According to the sheriff's department, two of his offspring, a 14-year-old boy and an 18-year-old woman, were transported to a hospital with fragmentation wounds.
The Porter County Bomb Squad was summoned in to secure the area and "determine if there are additional explosive devices," according to the sheriff's office. Homicide detectives and the crime scene investigation branch of the Lake County Sheriff's Department are conducting the investigation into the incident.
The Lake County Coroner's Office had identified the father who was slain when a hand grenade exploded at his Northwest Indiana residence on Saturday evening. Bryan Niedert, 46, was declared deceased at his home in the 3400 block of West Lakeshore Drive.
According to the coroner's office, the cause and manner of death are pending the results of an autopsy, which is scheduled to take place on Monday. While sheriff's officials initially stated that "someone purportedly removed the device's pin," it remained uncertain as of Sunday whether this was the case, as per NBC Chicago.
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Expert Says Incident was Unusual
As the investigation continued on Sunday, detectives "were investigating whether the device may have self-detonated due to its age or other factors, whether the pin was drawn, or whether any other circumstances may have been involved."
Lt. Col. Robert Leiendecker, an expert in explosive ordnance disposal and former commander of the 67th Ordnance Detachment stationed at Fort McNair, said such grenade detonations are extremely unusual.
"There are a lot of hand grenades out there in private homes, parts of collections, or war souvenirs that the family has kept," Colonel Leiendecker explained. However, "a very, very high percentage are totally inert and safe to handle."
Approximately 15 years ago, the colonel said, it was more normal to see families come upon war relics such as a grenade or a few rounds of ammunition when cleaning out the attics or closets of World War II veterans. Per NY Times, Colonel Leiendecker stated that in the majority of those cases, the grenades were inert and legal to possess.
Colonel Leiendecker believes that when the pin was removed on Saturday in Indiana, there was a loud pop from the grenade when the firing pin struck the primer. That was most likely followed by a three- to five-second pause. Before the grenade detonated, a black powder column would burn down to the blasting cap.
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