Louie Lomas, 29, and his son Lockley spotted the 100-year-old hand grenade during their local walk by a river near their house, with Lockley at first attempting to pick it up.
Louie and Lockley initially thought it was a turtle. Louise is an ex-circus performer and he managed to pick up his son before he made contact with the grenade, saving them both from a potential explosion.
The quick-thinking professional juggler quickly rang the cops who arrived within 10 minutes at the scene.
Louie said that the grenade was sitting on the floor right by their feet as they walked along the river where they usually go for their daily walk.
‘‘Lockley did try to pick it up and I had to grab him very quickly,’’ Louie said.
Louise added that he received ‘‘a bit of a shock’’ when he realized what the object actually was. Initially, he did think ‘‘What’s a turtle doing in the ground here?’’
Luckily, the 29-year-old dad quickly came to the conclusion that what they saw was not exactly a harmless turtle but was, in fact, an extremely dangerous explosive. ‘’It was pretty obvious what it was so I wasn’t going to mess around,’’ Louise said.
The police arrived at the scene quickly, although Louie said further panic ensued when officers accidentally parked on the bridge right on top of the hand grenade.
“When the police arrived, they actually came and parked on top of it by accident. When they asked where it was and I told them they’d just parked right on top of it, they freaked out, jumped us into the back of the car, and sped to the end of the road, which was a dead end.”
“So then we kind of had to drive back over it again. Luckily we were in the middle of nowhere with no houses within 100 meters. Apparently it was still live, according to the bomb squad. I was disappointed I didn’t get to see it explode.”
Louie and his son were kept on site until a bomb squad arrived, which later on detonated the device.
He described it as a ‘’hectic’’ day, and it only got worse when they returned home and told Lockley’s mother what had happened. ‘‘The look on (her) face when we got back, it freaked her right out,’’ he said.