One thing I learned is never go downrange without a EOD guy unless you are a EOD guy.
Second thing I learned is if you go downrange with a EOD guy, precisely put your feet in his foot steps, precisely put your hands and fingers where he puts his hands and fingers and never touch anything unless he touches it first.
That kid in that article was also probably totally deaf after that explosion at least for awhile. The last casualty of the civil war and perhaps even the revolutionary war has not happened yet. We dig very carefully on CW sites and if we feel something big and solid, we start working the borders of it.
Never hurts to be too careful.