Three youngsters had the shock of their lives when they went fishing - and found a live grenade!
Luke Sturgess, 12, Charlotte Tuggey, 9 and Dion Evans, 16 had gone fishing with a magnet in the canal near the old Trooper bridge in Christleton on Saturday (September 9).
They had no idea what they were going to catch as part of their fishing expedition but the last thing they could have anticipated was pulling out a grenade.
Instead of panicking, the quick-thinking trio took a picture and sent it to Luke's mum, Dawn Sturgess, who contacted her brother in-law Martin Tuggey (Charlotte's dad) who used to be a soldier.
Realising it was a real grenade with no pin in it he raced to the kids and contacted the police who sent officers to the scene to close the nearby A41 and the canal towpath while waiting for the bomb squad to arrive.
Bomb squad officers took the device to a field near the Cheshire Cat pub where they carried out a controlled explosion.
It was only later the three school children were told what they had found was a World War Two Russian hand grenade known as an F1 fragmentation grenade.
Luke said: "When I pulled it out we weren't sure what it was but Dion said it looked like a hand grenade! I took a photo and sent it to my mum."
Cheshire Police issued the following statement on the incident: “Inspector Daniel Greenhalgh (Critical Incident Manager) managed the incident, ensuring the public remained safe.
“Traffic disruption was unavoidable when the grenade was exploded in a field off the A41, near to where it had been found in the canal. The grenade was live and could have exploded at any time. It was a F1 fragmentation Russian grenade.
“The incident was managed successfully and created some excitement with locals in the immediate area. Many thanks to the public for their patience in the area.”
Dawn Sturgess said: "As parents it hit home when the cordon around the area widened and the bomb squad arrived. It was a sobering moment watching and hearing the explosion knowing that our children had found it, handled it and thrown it to the ground, unaware of how much real danger they were in."
