Marathon County Bomb Squad Called to Ashland Goodwill After Live Hand Grenade Found in Donation Bin

Wednesday, January 31st, 2024 -- 10:00 AM

(Mike Leischner, WSAU) The Marathon County Bomb Squad was dispatched to Ashland on Saturday after a worker at a Goodwill Sorting Center found what turned out to be a live hand grenade in a donation bin.

According to Mike Leischner with WSAU, Ashland Police Lieutenant Brandon Marten says they got the call about 12:30 PM from a manager at the facility who immediately recognized that the item could be dangerous.

By then they had already isolated it and started clearing the building. Once they had a perimeter established they opened up communications with the Wausau-based Bomb Squad to evaluate the situation.

“We sent them some pictures and they believed it was a grenade, but couldn’t tell from the pictures if it was live or not. Their opinion was that it was live and could be very unstable, so they responded,” said Marten. “They transported it to a safe area to detonate it, and based on the explosion from the grenade they believe it was live prior to [detonation.]”

Officials with Goodwill figured that the item came from the Duluth, Minnesota area. Lieutenant Martin says their investigation shows there was no malicious intent with the donation. It appears it may have been in someone’s personal collection for decades before being dropped off as part of a larger donation.

The item was ultimately identified as a Japanese Type 99 grenade from the WWII era. Bomb Squad Commander Mike Allard says officials with both Goodwill and the Ashland Police Department handled the situation exactly as they should have.

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