PORT CHARLOTTE, Fla. -- Just after 12:00 p.m. Wednesday afternoon a man wading in the water at the Port Charlotte Beach Complex located on Harbor Blvd., discovered an item on the water's edge that resembled a hand grenade.
The Charlotte County Sheriff's Office was contacted and the item was subsequently turned over to the CCSO Deputies. As a precaution, the Complex was evacuated until the item could be safely removed.
Southwest Florida Regional Bomb Squad Disposal personnel responded to the scene and removed the still unidentified item to another location for disposal. The investigation is ongoing to determine the identity of the item.
There was no threat of injury to anyone present at that time.
David Green was at the Beach Complex when the grenade was found and said a man came up to him asking him if he had a cell phone.
"I found a grenade!" Green said the man told him. "We didn't think it was real. We went over there, dumped it out, and it was real."
His friend held the grenade in his hands, but Green acted as photographer instead.
"It's kind of crazy because there's a lot of kids and families from all over the country actually swimming there. It could have been bad if the wrong person found it," Green said.
