Exploding Ammo Box

[Walkingadventure]

I can vouch for the watertight/airtight nature of ammo cans!
😯 😯 😯 😯 😯 😯 😯 😯 😯 😯 😯 😯 😯 😯

Following the signals from space.

[gotta run]

For the crew that experienced this (and I’m glad everyone’s ok), how would you suggest opening an ammo can? On it’s side or end with the top pointing away from you? This is a serious question, because quite often it is one kid or the other prying a can open with his/her face inches from the top.

On the Left Side of the Road...

[Walkingadventure]

My suggestion, which relates to my Safety training on throwing disconnects :

Hinged end of ammo box should be nearest the body and the clasping end away from the body.
If it explodes open, the blast will be directed away from the person opening the can.

Never put your face over the lid of a ammo can and keep everyone to the hinged side of the can.

It may blow open but your face should be protected. I never realized we undertook such a dangerous sport 8)

I’m not a math guy (that’s why I don’t due Sudoku’s, Calculus, etc on puzzles) but I would say the chances of this happening again are very very low.

Following the signals from space.

[gotta run]

True, but odds aren’t a consolation if it does happen, so from now on I’m opening the caches! Probably a good idea anyway.

On the Left Side of the Road...

[huffinpuffin2]

@huffinpuffin2 wrote:

We’ve run into a cache similar to this, but do not know if it is the same. Can someone please pm us with the cache name/GC#, so we can resolve that situation if there is indeed a second such can in the wild? Thanks!

Had a sobering vision of our grand-kids opening such a box. We did a revisit today to the DEET-loaded ammo box we previously encountered, and removed a can of REPEL(r). Left an IOU for some wipes.

Would be nice to see Groundspeak & WGA include a monthly safety tip on subjects such as this in their newsletters. And testimonials are powerful communicators.

Always worthwhile to have periodic safety training/refreshers, just prefer to see them initiated as a preventive measure, and not as a reaction to a bad event.

[huffinpuffin2]

@Walkingadventure wrote:

I’m not a math guy (that’s why I don’t due Sudoku’s, Calculus, etc on puzzles) but I would say the chances of this happening again are very very low.

You’re right on the probability of occurrence. In your case, you’ve probably seen 1 event in 2500 caches or so. And GC.com now has a million caches out there, so perhaps there are only another 399 of these set-ups spread out around the globe……

A potential problem analysis, such as used in accident prevention, would also agree, and place the probability of occurrence as low. However, the Seriousness/Severity of such an event, should it occur, is potentially quite high. Sometime, somewhere there may be a next time, with much more serious consequences.

Keep your spidey senses set ‘on alert.’

[Team Deejay]

I will drop a note to GS on “Ideas for the weekly mailer”.

[Walkingadventure]

HP, when you run the numbers like you did, then the likelihood of another occurance while low, still lends itself to the chance that was we speak there could be ~400 other “bombs” waiting as you said and I rethought my response.

IMHO:
Many accidents that result in severe injury are unique and singularly occurring events in which a series of breakdowns occur in a cascading effect.

Typically, no one thing causes an incident. It’s almost as is The Perfect Storm comes together and then the catastrophic happens:

A rural cache is created and an ammo can was chosen over a pill bottle as the container 😀

Horrible skeeters due to the wet summer and location 😈

Swag= OFF to combat bloodsuckers (a reprieve!) 😉

Heat= pressurized airtight/watertight can 😯

Malfunctioning OFF can leaked/expelled propellant 😡

WalkingAdventure finds a cache 😛 8) 😀

*KabOOm 😈 😈 😈

Thanks Deejay for taking this topic to a bigger audience/group for discussion. Not sure how this should’ve been advanced otherwise.

Following the signals from space.

[EnergySaver]

Wow! That’s horrible.

Thanks for the tip on the safest way to open, that was the first question to come to mind.

I guess that’s one advantage of “weak” plastic-ware.

[Lacknothing]

As a member of the caching group that witnessed, all I can say is that we were all OFF the rest of the day!

The views expressed here are that of myself only and do not necessarily represent that of the WGA board.

[huffinpuffin2]

@Team Deejay wrote:

I will drop a note to GS on “Ideas for the weekly mailer”.

Great! Thanks Team Deejay!

[Jstajlr]

One other thing to think about is public relations. We’ve seen stories posted about law enforcement treating caches as bombs. If this had in a city/county/state park and someone was seriously injuried, you would see a lot more caches being exploded as bombs. Municipalities would be fearful of granting permission for hides for fear of liablility. It would be hard to to claim to be a safe family activity with exploding caches making the news.

I’m glad all involved are safe.

[Team_Sandman]

Wow, Sorry this had to you glad you and your party is ok.. Wow just imagin if that happened to one of our kids that would have been bad.. I hope this will be a lesson learned..

[sevencards]

As a FTF I difused another one. I took the containers of bug spray as preventitive maintenance. GC2EPZD.

[gotta run]

I feel your log is more than a little harsh and unnecessarily negative, particularly on a cache owner with just a few hides.

On the Left Side of the Road...

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