State police were able to safely contain the device, found in the yard of a Lisbon home.

State police were able to safely contain the device, found in the yard of a Lisbon home.

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State police were able to safely contain the device, found in the yard of a Lisbon home.

A Lisbon man got the surprise of his life after finding what appeared to be a grenade on the property at 2 Spring St.

The landlord tells us one of the tenants in the building found the rusted device while digging a stump out of the yard, intending to plant tomatoes next to it.

Officials from Lisbon's fire and police departments were called to secure the area.

Residents sheltered inside the home until an explosives expert arrived from Maine State Police.

That officer was able to contain the device safely but says it's hard to determine whether it was still able to explode.

Officials say the device was considerably rusted over, and was missing the pin and spring that would have been removed in order to discharge a grenade.

Gary Hudon was the man who found the device.

"I pulled up that metal thing - looked like a grenade. I said no, that's a piece of plumbing, you know, off of a tank or something in the basement," he said.

"But sure enough, it still looked like a grenade. So I asked around - everybody was like, I should put that thing down. It looked like it might be dangerous, you know."

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