BURRY PORT, Wales — It’s a trip to the beach one family won’t soon forget.
Kelly Gravell told ABC News that during a beach trip in Burry Port, Wales, she snapped pictures and video of her 6-year-old and 4-year-old next to what she thought was a buoy.
“We were more fascinated by the barnacles on it,” Gravell said. “My son was touching it and was knocking on it a little bit, and that was it really.”
Five days later, the family was shocked when officials announced that a “buoy” discovered on the seashore was actually a United States military mine bomb, which reportedly dates back to World War II.
“The realization that it was a bomb — it was completely shocking for us,” she said. “We realize now just how lucky we were.”
Officials say it is common for buoys to wash up in the area where the mine was found.
“It very much looks like a buoy, which we get on the regular, but around it was gooseneck barnacles,” Allison Thomas-David, press and communications officer for Carmarthenshire County Council, said. “Of course as the barnacles started dropping off, that’s when we could see writings exposed.”
The bomb was later detonated in a controlled explosion.