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First Posted: 11/5/2013
(AP) An explosion tore most of a man’s leg off as he helped tenants move out of a rented home, Arizona authorities said Tuesday as they investigated whether the device was left over from a cleanup operation in the 1990s on the same site where a munitions maker once tested bomb-making materials.
In 1999, a state task force declared the 120-acre ranch safe after removing thousands of pounds of chemical explosives, including materials to make grenades and booby traps, from the property.
“The crisis is over,” then-Gov. Jane Hull declared at the time.
On Monday night, however, a 49-year-old man is believed to have stepped on an explosive device that nearly blew off one leg and severely injured the other, Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio said.
The sheriff said a bomb squad would get onto the property Tuesday as they work to determine what exactly exploded and if there are more devices around the site.
“It’s going to take time,” Arpaio said.
The sheriff said he didn’t know who owns the property now, but said it was once owned by Charles Byers, a former munitions manufacturer.
In 1997, federal agents raided the property and discovered enough explosives to support a small army. Byers pleaded guilty in federal court to illegally possessing grenade fuses and manufacturing ammunition. He was sentenced to probation.
After months of talks between agencies about how to dispose of the materials safely, the project was eventually handed off to the state.
Hull appointed the former medical director of the Phoenix Fire Department, Dr. James Schamadan, to head an “incident management team” overseeing the cleanup. It was declared complete in May 1999.
Schamadan did not return a telephone message on Tuesday, nor did the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, which assisted in the initial disposal of munitions on the site. A spokesman for Gov. Jan Brewer also did not immediately return telephone messages or emails.
The identity of the man injured in Monday’s night’s blast was not released.
One of the renters he was helping to move out had a military background and was able to aid the man, Arpaio said.
“I felt I was back in Iraq again,” renter Jordan Perrin told KPHO-TV.
Perrin said he and his girlfriend, Chelsie Garner, were inside the house and nearly finished loading their belongings when they heard the explosion.
“He said he was just walking,” Perrin said of the victim.
Garner told KSAZ-TV that the couple had been told by their landlord that previous owners had done munitions testing on the property years before.
“And that the bomb squad had come out and swept the whole thing and everything was clear, but obviously not,” she said.
The property is about a mile from the nearest home, Arpaio said. “There’s no danger to neighbors.”
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Associated Press writer Paul Davenport contributed to this story.
Associated Press