Woman Begins Cleaning Out Her Elderly Dad's Basement. Then An Explosive Find Rewrites A Childhood Memory

When we grow up doing things a certain way, we don't always realize that other families might do things differently. Like the family that was inadvertently using a live artillery shell as a doorstop. That's what happened to Carly Dimanche and her family. Dimanche shared a video on Instagram of what happened when her mother was cleaning stuff out of her grandfather's basement. In the video, Dimanche shows the escalating situation with her mom texting the family group chat to say the bomb squad had been called to the house. "Gpa had an artillery shell in the basement."

The video shows the situation escalating as emergency crews are called, and the family learns that the shell dating back to World War I is live. "They said it could have detonated at any time," reads a text from Dimanche's mom in the group chat. Later screenshots in the video from Dimanche's mom says reveal, "It was used to prop the pantry door open in the old house. ... I remember it as a kid." To dispose of it, it had to be buried in a field with C4 brought in to detonate it.

It almost sounds like a plot point in a movie or TV show. It hasn't (yet) been one of the tragic situations we've seen on the A&E show "Hoarders," but we could see something like this being found buried in someone's stuff. And as any "Grey's Anatomy" fans know, there was a famous Season 2 episode when a live explosive device ended up lodged in a patient. They had to call the bomb squad — giving us one of the most heartbreaking moments on "Grey's Anatomy."

People chimed in on the Instagram comments about what happened to Carly Dimanche and her family. One person said: "My dad was on the bomb squad in the 60's-70's and he said almost all their work was exactly this. So many ww1 and ww2 veterans held onto bombs." Someone else wrote, "Oh my goodness, thank god yall have been safe all these years to witness this!"

Watch Dimanche's video, and if you have any family members or friends who have a similar looking item at home, whether tucked away or being used to prop open a door, advise THAT they have it checked out by officials. The FBI website has an entire page dedicated to what you should do in a similar situation of discovering something like this when cleaning out a relative's home, particularly a veteran. Special Agent Patrick Carolan, a bomb technician with the FBI's St. Louis Field Office said: "People are sometimes hesitant to call us because they think they're putting us out. That is not the case. This is our job. We'd much rather come take a look at it and have it be nothing. We don't want anyone to get hurt," via FBI.gov.

For older adults and boomers, it can be beneficial for future generations if you clean out your house and your stuff before people have to do it in the wake of your death. It may seem morbid; however, all it does is help you as well as your loved ones by having all your things in order. And as we learned from Dimanche's situation, it could also have the side effect of preventing your family from having to call the authorities about a mystery item / possible live ammunition found amongst your things.