Donated grenade detonated outside museum

A well-meaning patron donated an antique hand grenade to the Spokane Valley Heritage Museum last week.

So authentic was the device that a bomb squad feared it might be live and blew it up before fire officials and onlookers from an evacuated tavern next door.

“It was pretty exciting,” said museum director Jayne Singleton, who’s putting together an exhibit on World War II coming for May.

An older woman who has donated items to the museum before brought in a box of memorabilia on Feb. 27.

“She said, ‘Oh, and there’s also a hand grenade,’ and I said ‘what?’ ” Singleton said.

Having displayed a grenade in the museum before, Singleton checked the bottom for a telltale hole or red stopper that would indicate it was deactivated.

There wasn’t any, and Singleton said she took the grenade outside and set it in the parking lot.

She called emergency officials who dispatched Spokane Valley Police, Valley Fire and the sheriff’s office bomb squad, which eventually destroyed the grenade with a projectile, Singleton said.

Aside from grenade incident, the rest of the week between Feb. 27 and Monday was relatively calm, said Valley Fire spokesman Bill Clifford.

The department received 168 calls for service, most of them medical emergencies.

Three were three fire reports, but none turned out to be serious, he said.

The sheriff’s office asked for firefighters’ help with a possible water rescue near Donkey Island in the Spokane River Sunday, Clifford said. A man had apparently run into the river, but was out of the water and in police custody by the time fire officials arrived, Clifford said.

There were 15 vehicle accidents during the week. One required transportation to the hospital.

The lone hazardous materials call turned out to be caused by a malfunctioning carbon monoxide detector, and Clifford said the fire crew replaced the battery in the device.

There also were seven false fire alarms and three service calls, including one from some people at the fairgrounds Thursday who thought they were trapped in the parking lot but later found the gate was unlocked.