Two men injured by apartment explosion while playing with World War II artillery shells

Two men in their 60s were hospitalized in Poland after a World War II artillery shell that one of them had found in a forest and brought home exploded. Both men had been drinking alcohol, police said, and one of them was significantly over the legal limit to drive in the country when he was found in the damaged apartment.

Police in Głubczyce, a community of about 12,000 in southwestern Poland, received reports around 7:30 a.m. on October 21 of a window hanging from an apartment building, as if it had been torn out from the inside.

Officers, along with bomb-sniffing dogs and counterterrorism experts, were sent to the scene, where they evacuated residents of the building and surrounding homes.

Upon entering the apartment, police found two men and a 45-year-old woman under the influence of alcohol. One of the men and the woman had blood alcohol levels of 0.25%, 12 times more than the legal limit for driving in Poland.

The two men were hospitalized with non-life-threatening injuries, police said.

The apartment owner told authorities he found the artillery shell while walking in the woods several years earlier.

After a search of the facility, officers located another unexploded device, a World War II mine, which they secured and then neutralized at a military training camp.

Prosecutors have launched an investigation into the incident.

“We remind you that if you discover an object resembling an unexploded ordnance, you should not, under any circumstances, move, touch or disarm it,” police said in a statement Wednesday, adding that large projectiles can have a range of up to several hundred meters. “The area where it is located should be secured against access by unauthorized people, especially children. If you are in an open space or forest, mark the area so that no one enters and can be easily found.”