Contemporary History 6 – No BOOM is good BOOM!

Contemporary History 6 – No BOOM is good BOOM!

Who knew antiques could be so dangerous?

I picked up my newspaper on 11/29/2018 and the headline across the top read, “When a first aid kit can be explosive.” That caught my eye. It told of a fellow in Banks Township who found two old mine first-aid kits and, upon opening them, discovered they contained a large amount of “Picric Acid Gauze”. He had just been to an in-service training about explosives in which they covered “Picric Acid”. He knew what it was. He left his house and called 911. They came and blew his Picric Acid Gauze up! As in with dynamite and a big BOOM!

In my collection of items passed down from previous generations, I knew I had a small mine first aid kit of about the age of his. His were bigger kits but still. I got mine and opened it up to check it out. Sure enough, right there on top was a packet marked “Picric Acid Gauze”. It was all of 2 inches long, half an inch wide and ¼ of an inch thick.

I picked it up, looked it over, even measured it!

Mostly I wondered what to do with it. I could just put it back in the kit to keep the kit whole. After all it is an antique! I could just toss the little thing in the trash and be rid it. I could toss it in the burn barrel when I burn the rest of my unrecyclable papers. However, potential damage to future Drums told me not to leave it in the kit. Potential damage to the trash men told me to keep it out of the trash. Not knowing how big of an explosion it might cause meant burning it was out. That left me with only one alternative. 

Call 911.

The 911 operator was very nice but obviously had no idea what I was talking about other than that I had mentioned the word “explosive”. When she heard that word, she said she’d have a police officer call me back right away. Butler Township Police Chief Brian Sabatini called me in a relatively short time. I explained the issue. He said he would be right over. He told me not to handle the stuff and that he was on his way.

Shortly thereafter, Chief Sabatini pulled into my driveway and I met him in the front yard. I told him, as I had the 911 operator, that I was feeling a bit foolish about all the fuss since the quantity I had was rather small. Still, the news article said even a small amount was dangerous so I had called. He agreed I had done the right thing but I could tell he was not impressed any more than I was with the quantity of material we were talking about. Still he called the State Police Hazardous Device and Explosive office in Harrisburg for instructions.

They told him to evacuate the house and wait for them to arrive. They were leaving right away to come and dispose of it. They asked if there was a field near-by where they could explode it. The chief told them there was a field right behind the house. Then he told me to get out of the house.

Soon thereafter an ambulance, fire rescue truck, and fire pumper-engine, called there by Chief Sabatini as a precaution, joined the Police Cruiser and me in my front yard, . There we all stayed, in the yard, in the cold, waiting for the Harrisburg guys. I fielded questions from neighbors while those emergency guys talked deer hunting (‘tis the season!) with each other. 

For the next hour or so I stood outside my house, enjoying the cool, fresh 32°F breezes of the great outdoors, all the time knowing the furnace was doing its job of keeping the inside of the house its usual warm 68°F! When the bomb guys arrived, they explained the procedure: “I’m going to bury it in the field with a counter-charge, yell ‘fire in the hole’ three times and then blow it up. You’re welcome to video it if you want”.

When all was ready outside, I took him inside to retrieve the little packet, still sitting on my kitchen table, right where I had left it. He took one look and told me that there was enough there to “blow your hand off.” He said that at the end of WWII, when the Japanese were running out of other explosives, they used Picric Acid in their hand grenades, it was that explosive. He made me move to the far end of the house while he moved it from the table into a padded carrying case.

Somehow, after that, I didn’t feel so foolish for calling 911.

My smart phone decided security was more important than the reason I was trying to open it so I almost missed the big boom part. As can be seen in the video, I caught it just as the thing exploded.

As the bomb guys were packing up their stuff and the big-BOOM echoes faded away, I was introduced to a woman who identified herself as the reporter who had written the article which I had read that morning; the thing that started of all this. She thought my discovery was a great follow-up story to her previous story. She liked that after reading her story, I called police; it was the outcome she had been hoping her story would elicit.

So, what do I find in the paper the next morning?  ME!! ABOVE THE FOLD!

So, now I wonder what else is lurking in the treasures my ancestors left me now scattered throughout Drumyngham.

That’s life in Drumyngham. Never a dull moment!