A child took a live grenade to nursery – could have detonated at any moment

A part of Lasarettsboulevarden was cordoned off on Tuesday evening after a child was found to have a grenade. The National Bomb Squad was sent to the scene to take care of the grenade.

It turned out that it was live. "It went very well considering what could’ve happened”, says Marcus Nilsson from the Southern Skåne Regiment.

At 7.40 pm on Tuesday evening, the police received information about a suspicious dangerous object on Lasarettsboulevarden, near a nursery. One of the members of staff called the police.

- The staff discovered the object and became concerned. It was one of the children who had it with them, says Ulla Brehm, Spokesperson for the police.

The object turned out to be a grenade that the child had all summer. The child had found the grenade on the Rinkaby shooting range and took it with him to the nursery.

A police patrol was at the nursery within ten minutes. As a precautionary measure, the police sent the National Bomb Squad. When the bomb squad arrived in the evening, the area was cordoned off. The grenade was found by a flowerbed near Vintergatans nursery. At 11.24 pm the bomb squad carried out a controlled detonation.

The detonation showed that the grenade was live.

Marcus Nilsson, Head of Communications for the Southern Skåne Regiment, P7, says that the grenade may have been old, a type that the army has not used for over 20 years.

– If it’s live, it can explode, even if it’s very old. So it went very well considering what could have happened, he says.

These days, the army uses other types of grenades and rarely real grenades.

– If there isn’t any training going on, you can go on the shooting range, but you should never touch anything that you find and what isn’t natural, says Marcus Nilsson.

– If you find something you should call the army or the police and mark the site.