Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, August 5, 1993 TAG: 9308050233
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: RON BROWN STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Now, he's lost his job and could lose his freedom, if federal authorities have their way.
"There is that possibility," Manley somberly admits. "It's been a long, bad day."
When he got off work from the midnight shift at Roanoke Memorial Hospital, he walked to his car in the parking garage. He noticed that the hand grenades he had stored in his car's glove compartment were missing.
"They were dummies I'd gotten at a gun show several years ago," Manley said.
But Manley, who monitored cardiac machines, had modified the grenades, stuffing them with pyrodex, a black-powder substitute known for burning more cleanly when it ignites.
"I was going to take them out to the farm and see what they would do," Manley said. "I never made it. They'd been in there forever and ever."
Worried that whoever might have latched onto the explosives could harm someone, Manley went to the hospital's security office and reported the theft.
After he made a report, he got back into his Jeep and headed for home on Colonial Avenue. Then he noticed the hand grenades in the back seat.
He called the hospital security office to tell them all was well. But security wanted him to bring the grenades back to the hospital.
Manley gutted the grenades of their explosives and removed their fuses.
"I wanted to return them to their original state," he said.
Back at the security office, agents from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms and a state police bomb squad were waiting when he walked in.
Federal authorities now are looking for a way to charge him. Hospital authorities fired him right away for carrying a weapon on hospital grounds.
"It's right there in black and white in the personnel manual," Manley said.
"There was never any harm intended to anybody," he said. "I never took them into the hospital. It was just a streak of bad luck."
by CNB