Twenty years ago, a woman in Hubei Province surnamed Qin was working on her farm when she came across a strange “metal lump.”
Due to its shape, Qin mistook the object for a hammer, and began using it for household tasks such as cracking nuts, pounding red pepper, and embedding nails.
Unbeknownst to Qin, now 90 years old, her ‘hammer’ was actually a hand grenade.
Image via GMW
The grenade was finally discovered on Sunday, when a building belonging to the elderly woman in the town of Huangbao was being demolished and workers recognized the ‘tool’ as a hand grenade.
Authorities in the area then said they had dispatched “professional bomb disposal personnel” to retrieve the explosive device and hold a safety education session for the villagers.
Here is where things get a bit silly.
After identifying the object as a dangerous explosive, officers arrived in short-sleeved shirts and hardhats to carefully wrap it up in bubble wrap and seal it with masking tape – perhaps they weren’t particularly worried after Qin had survived 20 years banging it around.
Image via GMW
A police announcement of the woman’s potentially deadly mistake, along with a video of the ‘bomb retrieval,’ went viral – accruing over 75 million views in the first 24 hours alone.
Weibo users’ comments ranged from speculation regarding the possibility it is just a training grenade because it hasn’t exploded after being mishandled for 20 years, to other saying that was a testament to its quality.
Others wondered how she used the grenade for so long without ever pulling the fuse – which was clearly exposed – simply out of curiosity.
“Apparently, even hand grenades have principles and won’t explode on kind-hearted elderly people,” one quipped.
Whatever the reason the hand grenade didn’t explode, we see enough weapons used for the wrong reasons every day – it’s nice to have one of them make us laugh for a change!
[Cover image via GMW]
