By Andrea Alexander and Joel Schectman
Passaic County Herald News
LITTLE FALLS — Authorities on Wednesday detonated two live World War II-era pineapple grenades that had been hanging on a basement wall in a home on Parkway for about 50 years.
A contractor discovered the grenades while doing work at the house and advised homeowner Gizella Kent, 83, to call police, Sgt. Jim Briggs said. Kent told authorities that the grenades had been there for decades and she believed they were dummies. Her husband, a World War II veteran who recently died, had other old military shells that he kept in the house.
Township police called for assistance from the Passaic County Sheriff’s Office Bomb Squad after examining the grenades, which had pins in them and did not have hollowed-out bottoms, a sign that would have indicated they were disabled, Briggs said. He said live grenades can still pose a danger even after half a century.
Authorities took the grenades to the sheriff’s range on Garret Mountain, where they were detonated, Passaic County Sheriff Richard H. Berdnik said.
“By safely taking the grenades from the home and rendering them inactive, the bomb squad assured that no one would be harmed during the course of this situation,” Berdnik said.
He said the sheriff’s department recommends that anyone who finds potential weapons or bombs notify local police.
Bob Dombrowski, a 50-year-old neighbor who helps Kent with odd jobs, said she didn’t seem concerned that the grenades posed a danger, and neither did he.
“If they hadn’t gone off by now they weren’t going to,” Dombrowski said.
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