{"id":62115,"date":"2026-07-31T04:26:28","date_gmt":"2026-07-31T04:26:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/62115\/"},"modified":"2026-07-31T04:26:28","modified_gmt":"2026-07-31T04:26:28","slug":"explosive-donation-to-museum-brings-bomb-squad-to-eudunda-family-heritage-gallery","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/62115\/","title":{"rendered":"Explosive donation to museum brings bomb squad to Eudunda Family Heritage Gallery"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"paragraph_paragraph___QITb\">A regional museum needed to call in the bomb squad after discovering a highly explosive acid among its donated items.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph_paragraph___QITb\">Historian Samuel Doering was sorting through a &#8220;backlog&#8221; of donations at the Eudunda Family Heritage Gallery in South Australia&#8217;s mid-north when he came across an old doctor&#8217;s bag.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph_paragraph___QITb\">&#8220;In one of the boxes that we brought forward was this odd-looking brown bottle with a gauze sort of label on it that said picric acid,&#8221; Mr Doering told <a class=\"Link_link__5eL5m ScreenReaderOnly_srLinkHint__OysWz Link_showVisited__C1Fea Link_showFocus__ALyv2\" href=\"https:\/\/www.abc.net.au\/listen\/programs\/northandwest-breakfast\" data-component=\"Link\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">ABC Radio&#8217;s North &amp; West Breakfast<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"A brown glass bottle with a tape over the middle that has 'picric acid' written on it.\" class=\"Image_image__5tFYM ContentImage_image__DQ_cq\"  src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/7e0bd946b13eb79fb9ec2d353f8afb96.jpeg\" loading=\"lazy\" data-component=\"Image\" data-lazy=\"true\"\/><\/p>\n<p class=\"Typography_base__sj2RP FigureCaption_text__zDxQ5 Typography_sizeMobile12__w_FPC Typography_lineHeightMobile20___U7Vr Typography_regular__WeIG6 Typography_colourInherit__dfnUx\" data-component=\"Typography\">The highly explosive picric acid was historically used for several medicinal purposes.\u00a0 (Supplied: Samuel Doering)<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I looked it up and quickly discovered it&#8217;s a highly volatile and very explosive material.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph_paragraph___QITb\">The donation had been living in the chilly archive room for &#8220;several months&#8221; before being moved to the warmer reception area.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph_paragraph___QITb\">Historically used for a range of medicinal purposes, picric acid is classed in the top division of Class One Explosives in Australia, ruled a &#8220;mass explosion hazard&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph_paragraph___QITb\">The dried acid can combust if exposed to heat or friction, and is considered <a class=\"Link_link__kR0xA Link_link__5eL5m ScreenReaderOnly_srLinkHint__OysWz Link_showVisited__C1Fea Link_showFocus__ALyv2\" href=\"https:\/\/www.abc.net.au\/news\/2026-06-15\/explosive-hazards-at-shackleton-and-scotts-huts-antarctica\/106793256\" data-component=\"Link\" data-uri=\"coremedia:\/\/article\/106793256\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">more explosive than trinitrotoluene (better known as TNT<\/a>).<\/p>\n<p>Loading&#8230;<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph_paragraph___QITb\">Mr Doering had called local police to the scene, but it was a while before reality really sank in.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;This donation had come from Victoria in the back of a car and nothing had happened, and it had sat in the archive room for several months and, again, nothing had happened, and then I carried it to the front of the gallery to be sorted and still nothing happened,&#8221;  he said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph_paragraph___QITb\">&#8220;The penny dropped after she [the police officer] said the bomb response unit was required.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph_paragraph___QITb\">A police spokesperson confirmed they were called to the Bruce Street building around midday on July 24.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph_paragraph___QITb\">&#8220;SAPOL&#8217;s bomb technicians attended to safely remove and dispose of the chemical, identified as picric acid,&#8221; the spokesperson said.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.abc.net.au\/news\/2026-06-15\/explosive-hazards-at-shackleton-and-scotts-huts-antarctica\/106793256\" data-component=\"FullBleedLink\" class=\"RelatedCard_link__rsgR9 FullBleedLink_root__lTw_U interactive_focusContext__yRhc_ interactive_defaults__AKxUU FullBleedLink_showVisited__g3Xvz\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Explosive hazards at Antarctic huts<\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"Typography_base__sj2RP RelatedCard_synopsis__cFwMW Typography_sizeMobile14__u7TGe Typography_lineHeightMobile20___U7Vr Typography_regular__WeIG6 Typography_colourInherit__dfnUx\" data-component=\"Typography\">Chemicals found inside two of Antarctica&#8217;s most important historical sites, Earnest Shackleton&#8217;s and Robert Falcon Scott&#8217;s huts, could pose &#8220;potential explosive hazards&#8221;, a report has warns.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph_paragraph___QITb\">&#8220;It is believed an old bottle of the substance, which was historically used for medicinal purposes, was inadvertently included in a larger donation.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph_paragraph___QITb\">While police would not comment on how or where they disposed of the substance, Mr Doering said one local told him about hearing a blast that &#8220;echoed through the hills&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>Dentist&#8217;s detonating donation<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph_paragraph___QITb\">The donation had once belonged to Fred Leditschke, who graduated in medicine from the University of Adelaide in 1924.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph_paragraph___QITb\">Mr Doering suspected Dr Leditschke used picric acid to sterilise his dental tools, though it had many uses throughout the history of medicine.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"A black and white photo of a man wearing graduation robes\" class=\"Image_image__5tFYM ContentImage_image__DQ_cq\"  src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/01b58f2882941dd5f586f8284856765a.jpeg\" loading=\"lazy\" data-component=\"Image\" data-lazy=\"true\"\/><\/p>\n<p class=\"Typography_base__sj2RP FigureCaption_text__zDxQ5 Typography_sizeMobile12__w_FPC Typography_lineHeightMobile20___U7Vr Typography_regular__WeIG6 Typography_colourInherit__dfnUx\" data-component=\"Typography\">Friedrich &#8220;Fred&#8221; Leditschke had owned the acid. (Supplied: Samuel Doering)<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph_paragraph___QITb\">&#8220;[It was] quite often used in the First World War; they would just pour this acid onto burns to cauterise them,&#8221; Mr Doering said.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;It was used as the explosives in hand grenades and artillery shells, so it&#8217;s quite a diverse material but still highly dangerous.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph_paragraph___QITb\">It was definitely the most dangerous donation the Eudunda gallery had ever seen.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph_paragraph___QITb\">&#8220;It&#8217;s certainly not every day that you have the bomb response unit coming to dispose of material,&#8221; Mr Doering said.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph_paragraph___QITb\">&#8220;When donations come through, you do sort through them to make sure that there&#8217;s nothing poisonous &#8230; so this was a bit of a surprise that this had managed to get through the cracks.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph_paragraph___QITb\">&#8220;Thank goodness it didn&#8217;t go up anywhere where people were, or especially in the gallery. It would have been catastrophic.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>More news from regional SA<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A regional museum needed to call in the bomb squad after discovering a highly explosive acid among its&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":62116,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[22,21,71855,71857,71854,71856,1055],"class_list":["post-62115","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-australia","tag-au","tag-austrlia","tag-dr-fred-leditschke","tag-eudunda","tag-picric-acid","tag-samuel-doering","tag-sapol"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62115","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=62115"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62115\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/62116"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=62115"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=62115"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=62115"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}