MOST dangerous Situations you have been in while Detecting

[DixieLandMan]

I was at a local sports park and I noticed 3 rough looking guys staring and pointing at me. I was aware of their presence so I noticed when one started walking towards me. When he got about 20-30 feet away from me, I turned to the side and made sure he saw that I was packing heat. He immediately stopped in his tracks and made a beeline back to his friends. That is the only time I ever had any problem at that park and one reason I still carry today

 

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[pepperj]

The thought of being buried alive makes my skin crawl, it's one of my worst phobias. How old were you and your brother when this happened?

I was trying to recall that while I was writing it up. Probably 12/16 yrs of age, possibly a tad younger.
Time dates get a tad cloudy after 50+yrs.

 

[crashbandicoot]

You know what Crash? These guys that dive have my utmost respect and they likely think me a wussy. Know what? They are right about me and sharks. And I am

Got any crocs where you are? Australia is full of bad ars animals. And it looks like some of them are in the government now.

I love the water,rivers and lakes,but I,ll stay on top thank you! No gills you see! Yep I respect those divers!

 

[crashbandicoot]

I work as the ops manager for Norwegian People’s Aid (NPA), a humanitarian mine action INGO in Palau, working on conducting a targeted technical survey on a Confirmed Hazardous Area (CHA: 01-HAZARD-16) in Aimeliik state in the island of Babelthuap conducting QC on an already cleared lane, when my mine detector (Vallon VMC-4) started squealing. The spot was NOT flagged, so I scanned the target with the deminer’s issued Schonstedt 72GA-72Cd to see what readings he would get…. A magnetometer mid-range signal usually indicates mineral rocks, but also anything else, ranging from deeply buried projectiles, shallow armor-piercing rounds to subsurface frag at less than 50 grams. (non-conformities are rated at Japanese, Type 97 hand-grenades at 20cm, a 25mm AA HE/Frag at 15, or a 20mm AA HE/Frag at 12cm).
That was a “digable” target, so I geotagged it & started excavating. Being humid & hot as Hell in a jungle, (reduced my focus) although I dug on the target’s off-side,(too close, as I wanted to get back into the shade) but because of “ghosting” I ended-up digging straight down on it! At this point I uncovered a terribly corroded “SAA projectile” at approx. 5-7cm. It was a mass of corrosion with the boat-tail end of it being in relatively pristine condition. The moment I unearthed it, it started smoking. I routinely stepped back 25 meters and let it burn…. Within about 20 seconds it went out giving me the idiotic inpression that it was α tracer .50 Cal round, fired by American fighter-bomber aircraft, attacking a known AA position (in Japanese defense maps, and also mapped in the U.S. THOR bombing surveys)
What didn’t sink is that .50 cal rounds, have copper jackets, thus they are generally found intact, unless they impact on a solid surface; however, you do NOT see a “bloated” mass of corrosion (obviously screaming at you: “inferior ferrous Japanese alloy” with a perfectly preserved “boat-tail end.
Once the sputtering fire went out, I picked it up and dropped in my (moist) sand-bucket and drove to the ERW collection point. On the way there & in the comfort of the AC cab, the oddity of this “round” started nibbling at me, but the physical & metal fatigue (plus backing-up the narrow dirt road) pushed the nibbling concern away.
Once at the ERW collection point, the “weird” boat-tail mystery started bothering me again, so I put it on a vice and started removing the surface corrosion and baked clay with a pocket-sized, titanium breacher bar…
The “bullet” suddenly disintegrated and it caught fire again! Thank God, the cyclonite HE component, literally snapped off, and fell in separate pieces with the “boat-tail segment” onto the ground.
It was a bloody 20mm AA HE/Frag/WP projectile, where the “boat-tail” was non other than a point detonating fuze…. I don’t want to think what would have happened if the separator disk (separating the WP charge from the projectile’s HE filler was as corroded; it may have been built with copper, or else the cyclonite would have started burning, and eventually reach the PD fuse’s gaine and low-order…
One might think… Pffft.. 20mm low-ordering with most of the WP having burned-off! Big deal! Well, it’s enough to blind you of even kill you if the frag hits you in the throat! — Having assumed it was a .50 BMG with an “unnatural” long-burning tracer element, I was not wearing kevlar PPE or Rofi mask — Fishermen in the Solomon islands have perished by trying to extract 20mm PD fuzes for their bomb-fishing activities…
Well…. I had my share of close calls, but never a projo going “Fourth of July” on me!

Being a Marine vet,I,ve studied the battle for Peleliu and the Palaus.Lots of ordinance fired off there,particularly on Peleliu and Anguar.Be careful my friend,you guys do a very dangerous and unappreciated job cleaning up this stuff,my hat,s off to you!

 

[Trezurehunter]

I had an incident similar to yours Gare. I was detecting in a wooded area (forest preserve) and 3 men got a little to close for my comfort. I had already seen them, and when one of them asked me if I had found his lost diamond ring, I knew there could be trouble. These guys were dressed like they were homeless, so when he asked me about the diamond ring (when he looked like he could not have afforded a plastic carnival ring), I slowly moved my right hand up under my jacket on the right side. They got the hint and moved off, and so did I. Found another place to detect the rest of the day.

 

[CreakyDigger]

I live in NY...and with 5 pistols - and I can't carry sh-t.
Hopefully in the summer the US Supreme Court will nullify the stupid "must have a reason to carry" laws in NY!!!

Hey you might try again....easy to get concealed carry in NY now...it's not like it used to be.

 

[extreme detecting]

Hey you might try again....easy to get concealed carry in NY now...it's not like it used to be.

I live on Long Island - impossible AND I actually had a NYC full carry years and years ago when I owned 2 liquor stores...

 

[Gare]

I work as the ops manager for Norwegian People’s Aid (NPA), a humanitarian mine action INGO in Palau, working on conducting a targeted technical survey on a Confirmed Hazardous Area (CHA: 01-HAZARD-16) in Aimeliik state in the island of Babelthuap conducting QC on an already cleared lane, when my mine detector (Vallon VMC-4) started squealing. The spot was NOT flagged, so I scanned the target with the deminer’s issued Schonstedt 72GA-72Cd to see what readings he would get…. A magnetometer mid-range signal usually indicates mineral rocks, but also anything else, ranging from deeply buried projectiles, shallow armor-piercing rounds to subsurface frag at less than 50 grams. (non-conformities are rated at Japanese, Type 97 hand-grenades at 20cm, a 25mm AA HE/Frag at 15, or a 20mm AA HE/Frag at 12cm).
That was a “digable” target, so I geotagged it & started excavating. Being humid & hot as Hell in a jungle, (reduced my focus) although I dug on the target’s off-side,(too close, as I wanted to get back into the shade) but because of “ghosting” I ended-up digging straight down on it! At this point I uncovered a terribly corroded “SAA projectile” at approx. 5-7cm. It was a mass of corrosion with the boat-tail end of it being in relatively pristine condition. The moment I unearthed it, it started smoking. I routinely stepped back 25 meters and let it burn…. Within about 20 seconds it went out giving me the idiotic inpression that it was α tracer .50 Cal round, fired by American fighter-bomber aircraft, attacking a known AA position (in Japanese defense maps, and also mapped in the U.S. THOR bombing surveys)
What didn’t sink is that .50 cal rounds, have copper jackets, thus they are generally found intact, unless they impact on a solid surface; however, you do NOT see a “bloated” mass of corrosion (obviously screaming at you: “inferior ferrous Japanese alloy” with a perfectly preserved “boat-tail end.
Once the sputtering fire went out, I picked it up and dropped in my (moist) sand-bucket and drove to the ERW collection point. On the way there & in the comfort of the AC cab, the oddity of this “round” started nibbling at me, but the physical & metal fatigue (plus backing-up the narrow dirt road) pushed the nibbling concern away.
Once at the ERW collection point, the “weird” boat-tail mystery started bothering me again, so I put it on a vice and started removing the surface corrosion and baked clay with a pocket-sized, titanium breacher bar…
The “bullet” suddenly disintegrated and it caught fire again! Thank God, the cyclonite HE component, literally snapped off, and fell in separate pieces with the “boat-tail segment” onto the ground.
It was a bloody 20mm AA HE/Frag/WP projectile, where the “boat-tail” was non other than a point detonating fuze…. I don’t want to think what would have happened if the separator disk (separating the WP charge from the projectile’s HE filler was as corroded; it may have been built with copper, or else the cyclonite would have started burning, and eventually reach the PD fuse’s gaine and low-order…
One might think… Pffft.. 20mm low-ordering with most of the WP having burned-off! Big deal! Well, it’s enough to blind you of even kill you if the frag hits you in the throat! — Having assumed it was a .50 BMG with an “unnatural” long-burning tracer element, I was not wearing kevlar PPE or Rofi mask — Fishermen in the Solomon islands have perished by trying to extract 20mm PD fuzes for their bomb-fishing activities…
Well…. I had my share of close calls, but never a projo going “Fourth of July” on me!

WOW Finding War projectiles scares me . I keep telling people be CAREFUL> I am glad your sa

I was at a local sports park and I noticed 3 rough looking guys staring and pointing at me. I was aware of their presence so I noticed when one started walking towards me. When he got about 20-30 feet away from me, I turned to the side and made sure he saw that I was packing heat. He immediately stopped in his tracks and made a beeline back to his friends. That is the only time I ever had any problem at that park and one reason I still carry today

you look good on a horse

I was at a local sports park and I noticed 3 rough looking guys staring and pointing at me. I was aware of their presence so I noticed when one started walking towards me. When he got about 20-30 feet away from me, I turned to the side and made sure he saw that I was packing heat. He immediately stopped in his tracks and made a beeline back to his friends. That is the only time I ever had any problem at that park and one reason I still carry today

you look good on a horse

 

[LawrencetheMDer]

If you have been in any dangerous situations while detecting would you mind sharing the incidents with us. maybe it was animal related , Floods, Dangerous people

About 10 years ago maybe a few years less I had just paid around $2,500 for a Minelab CTX 3030 . I was detecting a park up near Akron Ohio and three guys came up to me and they looked like trouble . There was no one else around . I remember one tall person said "HEY WHITEY How much that GEIGER counter worth., Now i thought i was going to get robbed. I told them i had just got it last evening for 15 DOLLARS . To which he replied NOT worth it guys lets go. and they LEFT and then I LEFT LOL
Another time i was in a cane brake field near Vicksburg Mississippi and stepped on something thAT was wiggling under my sole. I had stepped on the tail end of a rattle snake. Not a very big one but it did not have to be . He was around a cane brake and trying to strike me. Mind you i had snakes chaps on but I still got very shakenup/.
Do you have any close calls you would care to share ?

Stuck on a Sand Bar

I was working a sand bar and dug several hundred coins in several hours. I had a full wet suit on and about 25 lbs of weight. As I headed back to shore I realized that the tide had come in and as I approached the trench between the sand bar and shore it got deeper and deeper. Soon I was 2 ft under water looking up at the surface! I used my scoop and detector to push myself up to the surface in order to breath, repeatedly. I went deeper...just as I thought I was going to have to drop my weight belt to pop-up to the surface to breath the trench started to go up. I made it back to shore and promised my self that I’d pay a little more attention to the tide next time.

 

[Back-of-the-boat]

This event wasn't while detecting, it happened while digging for old bottles.
As a family we all had the passion for collecting, and digging for old bottles was up at the top as detecting was.
My older brother, and myself had a few dumps that were in, and around our town, so we went to them often to dig.
Both of the bottle dumps were over the banks of gravel roads.
From digging at this one dump we had created 2 tunnels going into the bank, kind of off set a bit and 8+ft long.

A car went past and the whole bank caved in on top of us.
My brother being above me managed to heave his body up, and dig himself out while yelling for me.
For myself, I was on my hands and knees at the time so when it caved in, I was in a prayer position with my right arm stretched out.
After I realized what had happened, my first thought was wow I can breath underground.
Then I soon realized the position I was in and I was breathing only the air that was around the body in the crouched position.
My brother was digging down to the sound of my voice, and I knew enough to really stay calm and breath only slowly as the very muffled sound was far away still.
He reached the back of my head and pulled it back grabbing my hair. (exchange of blue words were exchanged)
My right hand was pinned between a shard and a big bone so it was a total dig out.

We washed up in the creek, and brushed off the best we could, and headed home. Our mom explained how dirty we were and was causing her more work. We waved goodbye as we headed to the other dump on our bikes.

When we arrived the same fate happened overnight, 30-40 ft of the whole bank had slid down covering our tunnels. Looking at each other in awe-that was the end of the tunnelling days.
We commented, just imagine if we here, we would of died.

Myself and three friends had a short tunnel we found, it was someones attempt at a mine entrance that wasn't shored up except for roots from an oak tree growing above the tee'd off area about 8 foot in and when we were leaving one day the entrance collapsed in on us and we had to dig our way out with our hands, needless to say none of us could sit for a week when our parents found out. But it was a cool fort until the cave in.

 

[Gare]

Stuck on a Sand Bar

I was working a sand bar and dug several hundred coins in several hours. I had a full wet suit on and about 25 lbs of weight. As I headed back to shore I realized that the tide had come in and as I approached the trench between the sand bar and shore it got deeper and deeper. Soon I was 2 ft under water looking up at the surface! I used my scoop and detector to push myself up to the surface in order to breath, repeatedly. I went deeper...just as I thought I was going to have to drop my weight belt to pop-up to the surface to breath the trench started to go up. I made it back to shore and promised my self that I’d pay a little more attention to the tide next time.

Great Idea and Thanks for ther story

 

[Gare]

Myself and three friends had a short tunnel we found, it was someones attempt at a mine entrance that wasn't shored up except for roots from an oak tree growing above the tee'd off area about 8 foot in and when we were leaving one day the entrance collapsed in on us and we had to dig our way out with our hands, needless to say none of us could sit for a week when our parents found out. But it was a cool fort until the cave in.

SOUNDS to me like your ALL LUCKY to STILL BE HERE WITH US !!!
Thanks for sharing

 

[Back-of-the-boat]

SOUNDS to me like your ALL LUCKY to STILL BE HERE WITH US !!!
Thanks for sharing

Yep and the cave(mine) is still there, all slumped in where it collapsed. My hometown was a gold mine town in Southern California called Julian traipsing around in the hills can be dangerous with mine adits dotting the hillsides but most are fenced off.

 

[newnan man]

I live on Long Island - impossible AND I actually had a NYC full carry years and years ago when I owned 2 liquor stores...

It is nice that the criminals & gang bangers in NYC obey the gun laws and don't carry.

 

[extreme detecting]

It is nice that the criminals & gang bangers in NYC obey the gun laws and don't carry.

But of course - that's what these Dem dominated gov't prefer...

 

[Oddjob]

For me pushing through attempting to avoid ordinance

 

[flflash]

This event wasn't while detecting, it happened while digging for old bottles.
As a family we all had the passion for collecting, and digging for old bottles was up at the top as detecting was.
My older brother, and myself had a few dumps that were in, and around our town, so we went to them often to dig.
Both of the bottle dumps were over the banks of gravel roads.
From digging at this one dump we had created 2 tunnels going into the bank, kind of off set a bit and 8+ft long.

A car went past and the whole bank caved in on top of us.
My brother being above me managed to heave his body up, and dig himself out while yelling for me.
For myself, I was on my hands and knees at the time so when it caved in, I was in a prayer position with my right arm stretched out.
After I realized what had happened, my first thought was wow I can breath underground.
Then I soon realized the position I was in and I was breathing only the air that was around the body in the crouched position.
My brother was digging down to the sound of my voice, and I knew enough to really stay calm and breath only slowly as the very muffled sound was far away still.
He reached the back of my head and pulled it back grabbing my hair. (exchange of blue words were exchanged)
My right hand was pinned between a shard and a big bone so it was a total dig out.

We washed up in the creek, and brushed off the best we could, and headed home. Our mom explained how dirty we were and was causing her more work. We waved goodbye as we headed to the other dump on our bikes.

When we arrived the same fate happened overnight, 30-40 ft of the whole bank had slid down covering our tunnels. Looking at each other in awe-that was the end of the tunnelling days.
We commented, just imagine if we here, we would of died.

When I was in elementary school I lost a classmate that had dug a fort/tunnel into sand and it collapsed on him.

 

[E-Trac-Ohio]

I don't have any stories a bad as some of you guy's.

I guess I've been lucky ...
I've just had a few large barking Dogs run up to me real fast, had a few Cow's chase me across their pastures and a few people threatend to call the Cop's on me while I was hunting on land that I already had permission to hunt.

 

[camichael]

OK its not a badger or a rattler but it got my heart thumping....I'm a city boy and detect parks and school yards...one day I was in a very large school yard and noticed a lady and her dog enter about 100 yards away. I said to myself she should saddle that dog since it was huge and I when back to detecting. A few minutes later I see the dog between her and I and the dog took notice of me and bee lined at me.... Now I like dogs but not when they're trying its best to get me. I put the coil in its face and was doing 360s yelling at the woman to get her dog....when she finally caught it she put a mussel on it!

 

[traveller777]

OK its not a badger or a rattler but it got my heart thumping....I'm a city boy and detect parks and school yards...one day I was in a very large school yard and noticed a lady and her dog enter about 100 yards away. I said to myself she should saddle that dog since it was huge and I when back to detecting. A few minutes later I see the dog between her and I and the dog took notice of me and bee lined at me.... Now I like dogs but not when they're trying its best to get me. I put the coil in its face and was doing 360s yelling at the woman to get her dog....when she finally caught it she put a mussel on it!

She should be muzzled too.