MCALLEN – A McAllen man says he’s counting his blessings after he found an artillery shell stuck in the ground on his property.

The McAllen police bomb squad removed the artillery shell just feet from several homes.

Ty Baslee says it was a sight he'll never forget; the area surrounding his property shutdown, neighbors evacuated and a bomb squad unit was at work.

"They strapped on their helmets and body armor and loaded it into their trailer and off it went," he says.

As a Navy veteran, Baslee says he has seen plenty of weapons similar, but never thought he would ever see one again.

"Looked at it; saw that it had a fuse in the top of the round that's what really made me nervous," he says.

Hidalgo County Sheriff Eddie Guerra had the same worry.

Once they responded they called the bomb squad to handle the removal and disposal.

"Since it had an impact fuse on the front of the shell that's what we're really concerned about. That thing making impact you know you drop it on the ground it'll cause the device to explode," says Guerra.

Baslee still can't believe he's alive; he ran over the shell while mowing the lawn twice and showed us pictures of where he dented it.

Guerra says they think the shell probably got there from dredging up a nearby canal, but he doesn't know how it got into the canal in the first place.

For more information watch the video above.