In the 70’s in elementary school I had a classmate who had a brother about two years younger than we were. In 1978 when the brother was only 8 years old he was killed in a freak accident. The family had moved to a new house whose previous owner collected war memorabilia. The brother found a hand grenade that had somehow been left behind. It was live and blew up in his hands.
Ten years later my former classmate was killed on board the Pan Am 103 bombing.
Archived New York Times article that is mostly about my classmate but mentions the death of the younger brother as well: https://archive.is/ykLi0
Those were the only two children in that family. I still think about them all from time to time to this very day…
Dude that is rough, no wonder it still hits you from time to time. Those poor parents.
I know you are probably just repeating the terms you were given at the time, but I would classify that ‘freak accident’ of a kid finding a live hand grenade left behind by an arms collector selling his house instead as ‘wreckless negligence’. The grenade did exactly what it was supposed to do, the responsible adult(s) failed enormously.
Aside - I’m absolutely not trying to chide you, I just don’t know how else to get my point across that we pass along these stories sometimes without questioning the framing of the story (I catch myself doing it).
Dating myself… This brings back bad memories…
In the 70’s in elementary school I had a classmate who had a brother about two years younger than we were. In 1978 when the brother was only 8 years old he was killed in a freak accident. The family had moved to a new house whose previous owner collected war memorabilia. The brother found a hand grenade that had somehow been left behind. It was live and blew up in his hands.
Ten years later my former classmate was killed on board the Pan Am 103 bombing.
Archived New York Times article that is mostly about my classmate but mentions the death of the younger brother as well: https://archive.is/ykLi0
Those were the only two children in that family. I still think about them all from time to time to this very day…
Dude that is rough, no wonder it still hits you from time to time. Those poor parents.
I know you are probably just repeating the terms you were given at the time, but I would classify that ‘freak accident’ of a kid finding a live hand grenade left behind by an arms collector selling his house instead as ‘wreckless negligence’. The grenade did exactly what it was supposed to do, the responsible adult(s) failed enormously.
Aside - I’m absolutely not trying to chide you, I just don’t know how else to get my point across that we pass along these stories sometimes without questioning the framing of the story (I catch myself doing it).