Like no other "JD"....
Darwin.
I was just gonna post this, so you saved me some work. The moral of this story: never use live ammunition in place of office equipment.
Darwin Award nominee.
How big was the "bug"?????????????
I wonder what impact area he hunts in?
Ventura County and Santa Barbara County Ping List!
I guess the story is going national now. Poor guy. He's lucky he wasn't killed or that one of his students weren't injured.
I guess it is time to sue the ammunition maker for not having instructions stamped into their ammo in Spanish.
Pathetic. How can one NOT KNOW if ammo has a live primer in it?
Well? Did he get the bug?
Overkill ping.
I remember at my grandparents house they had some sort of mortar round (? that's what my cousin called it) that they used to prop open one of those old double-hung windows with a broken sash cord.
It looked like an overgrown .22 round. Probably 2 or 2.5 inches in diameter and maybe 10 12 inches long.
It seriously looked like a giant .22 round except it wasnt a rimfire and the primer had been dimpled. Plus someone had drilled a small hole in the base so you could tell it didnt have any powder in it.
I always guessed that someone had reloaded it with a giant new bullet after it had been fired because I cant really imagine anyone drilling a hole in the side to take the powder out plus the primer had been struck with something.
Heck, that had to be way back in the early 60s
Here's the write up from the local paper, the Ventura County Star.
Exploding ammunition injures Ventura teacher
By John Scheibe,
April 4, 2006
Part of a Ventura instructor's right hand was severed Monday afternoon after he struck an object on his classroom desk against an old 40 mm round of ammunition while teaching.
The accidental discharge also left Robert Colla with severe burns and minor shrapnel wounds to his forearms and torso, said Tom Weinell, a captain with the Ventura Fire Department.
No one else was injured in the explosion, even though there were 20 to 25 people in the classroom with Colla at the Ventura Adult Education Center on Valentine Road when the explosion occurred at 4:06 p.m.
Colla was taken to Ventura County Medical Center, where he was listed in stable condition Monday evening.
"It was just a horrible accident," said Dennis Huston, who teaches computer design alongside Colla.
Huston said he had his back turned to Colla and was only about three feet away when he heard a loud bang.
He turned around to find Colla screaming, his right hand mangled.
The explosion sent shrapnel flying around the classroom, Huston said. One piece went into the ceiling, while another landed where a student would normally sit. Huston said the student was absent Monday.
Colla had found the 40 mm round while hunting years ago, Huston said. He used it as a paperweight and "obviously he didn't think the round was live," Huston said.
"He'd had it for years and years and nothing had happened before," Huston said. He described the round as about an inch-and-a-half wide and about five inches long.
The explosion also destroyed a computer keyboard, scattering some of the keys around Colla's desk.
Barry Tronstad, the center's director, said he didn't hear the explosion even though he was in the building at the time.
"I was alerted by the smoke alarm," Tronstad said.
The center is run by the Ventura Unified School District.
It looked just like this picture from e-bay, except that as I recall the grooves were closer together, so it would produce smaller fragments.
Great toy for a kid!
Yep.
But I got's to know. Did he get 'im?
Ah, yup.
how did he have a live 40mm shell on a desk in a california school without someone saying something? Maybe they all carry one?