Actually getting shot...

Once with a 12 ga birdshot load. It was the kind of guy who buys a heavier bullet so it can cut through the brush. He mistook me for a deer and shot me. I threw my arms up and only got a pellet in the chin for my trouble. It's still there.

Once with a rifle round. It zipped nicely through my OD's and my left pectoral muscle. Felt like I'd been pinched and twisted real hard. I already had the high from being shot at, so I didn't notice being shot until later.

It's one thing to have a guy mistakenly blast you with a scattergun. It's entirely different to know that a person is firing at you with malice.
 
.22lr was a SHARP sting.

.38 Special, shoulder went numb. Not much pain at all but it "hit hard" if you get what I mean.

Of course, both wounds were very sore while healing.
 
Chui: All this sturm and drang for a pistol wound to the hand?
I hope this was written as a joke.
If not, you take yourself way too seriously.

I feel sorry for the dedicated ER personnel who had to put up with a Mall Ninja with a pistol wound to the hand.

Seems to me you'd not say this if YOU had been shot in the hand. I've never been either, but with all those bones so close together, it's gotta hurt. Besides, what's wrong with mall ninjas? :p
 
,38 S&W to the chest, near contact range, shooter was heroin addict who kept the gun in his pockets, when he pulled the trigger, he had so much crap in the barrel that the gun blew. It felt like getting hit in the chest with a sledge hammer. I remember getting hot gas and stuff past my face, and when I got to the hospital, they pulled a finger tip that belonged to the shooter out of my clothes. I had a broken sternum, cracked ribs, and deflated lung. Doctors at Cook County had me up and around in about 4 hours, I was in bed, but awake, and in pain, when they wheeled the shooter past me on his way to the OR, apparently the gun took a few fingers and part of his thumb off when it went. He had taken the time to get high before coming in to get them sewn back on, which was no longer possible.

second time, scuffle in a bar where I was bouncing, little girl pulled out a .22 and tried to shoot her two or three timing boyfriend. I got my hand out to grab the gun when someone else pulled her arm, planting the muzzle right at the junction of the wrist and the meat of the palm. bullet went in there, out at the middle of the palm, in between ring and middle finger and out the back of the hand at the knuckles. (imagine your hand holding a glass, with no glass in the middle, the bullet had to go in and out, in and out,) It felt like someone slammed my hand in a door. Instant blinding pain. Then calm, I momentarily looked at my hand and flexed it, and every thing moved. I then grabbed the gun with the other hand and pistol whipped her twice in the face. I was VERY angry. What went thru my mind was "dang, there goes softball for the summer and at least a month of work." Doc who sewed it up, said he could not have placed the spot any better to any less damage that it did. basically all it did was tear muscle, no nerve damage, no vascular damage. just skin and muscle.

Funny thing is, both times, I never missed a shift at work.
 
Three feathers, I was just lucky as all get out. I am not superman, I was just lucky. If that doper has a clean barrel, I am singing in heaven. That girl shoots a half inch any other way and I have a claw for a hand.

its like all location location location. location of where you get hit, location of where you are when you get hit, and location of where aid can be found.

Or it can be as the guy who totals the car and never gets a scratch, or the other who gets rear ended at 10 MPH and breaks his neck. its all a crap shoot with regard to how you get out of it.

Watch all of these videos; not a fatality in the bunch, yet watch DE sr's crash and you swear its just a bump. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VDPzd5AcmnI&feature=related
 
I know that I could have been killed had any of mine been 2 inches different. I can't tell you how an eye wound hurts, I thought I was pretty tough and i gutted it out getting to the helo, but when the swelling started coming down I was in absolutely numbing pain. Because of the damage to the tissue and the subsequent disease the nerves on the right side of my face get irrupt immediately. My Docs at the VA have always been wonderful, I got, and get great treatment there. One of them, Dr. Michaels told one of my friends last year, Threefeathers has the most painful injury that can be, think of 20 or 30 needles being pushed into all corners of youe eye at once.
Luckilly the disease has symptoms and I am really alert to them, If i can get my med within 2 hours I can avert much of the pain. If not and it chooses to come on hard in an effort to blind me It's like being hit with a white hot knife on the side of the face.
 
Yes Threefeathers, I was just lucky. The .38 Special shoulder injury was really fairly minor, bullet went in and out without doing much damage at all. I was surprised at how hard it hit though and it HURT when healing. (It hit so hard that I don't really remember the sound of the gunshot even though it was at close "robbery" range.)

That's why I said to the wife years later - "Fine, if you like the .38 Special revolver for the downstairs house gun that's what we'll go with". (She can handle that caliber better than the larger ones. You know - not as apprehensive with the .38 Special.)

Same for the .22lr in the leg. It went in the side of the thigh and out roughly about only two inches from the outer edge of the thigh. Never really penetrated much of the thigh. It stung like heck though!!

The .38 Special shot did a little nerve damage but the burning from it nowadays is very rare and not too "hot" of a burning sensation. They say nerves can't heal but I'm not sure I totally agree with that.

Just lucky, that's all.
 
RDak you had the same experience I had. The most pain was in the healing process. All of mine had to be cleaned out, stitched and drained. The reason the eye disease wasn't picked up in time was that all my Docs thought that I was getting infections so I was treated with anti-bios. Hell I spent a year with so many anti-bios in me I'm surprised I did't cure every one aroung me.
I agree about the .38 Special it will do the job.

I have a nephew who is spending 14 years in prison and he killed 3 folks in one weekend with a Ruger .22 auto, target pistol. Of the folks he killed the nicest one was under investigtion for 8 murders in MO. I spoke in depth with him. One of them realizing he had been shot in the stomach sat down on the sidewalk andbegan crying. Another shot in the head died immediately, and the third bled to death after being shot in the arm that tore a major artery as my nephew was actually trying to get him to an emergency room.
 
I was target shooting with my brother, and I shot a thick steel plate at about 15 feet away with my ak (not very smart, as I found out). I was shooting one handed(shows my frame of mind). And the bullet bounced back (who couldn't see that coming from 5 minutes ago?) hit me square in the chest, and KNOCKED ME ON MY @$$ (Im 6 foot tall, 250 pounds, and I went straight back). No penetration, but it did leave a very interesting looking welt. It hurt like hell, but only for a little while, then it was just tender for a couple days. It sure as hell convinced me that I dont want to get shot.
 
I don't have first hand experience with getting shot, hopefully I never will. My father on the other hand got hit in the head with a 7.62x39 round while sneaking around somewhere in the Cambodia/Laos/Vietnam triangle.

The round hit him near the crown of his forehead, penetrated the skin, chipped his skull then left a groove type scar that starts at his hairline and ends right near the top of his head. The scar isn't visible unless he pushes his hair to one side or the other. When he got hit I guess the impact of the round knocked him unconscious. His buddies, being the type of guys I'd want to go into combat with if I ever had to, humped him back a couple of miles to their extraction point, all the while thinking he was dead. Anyway, they get him back to the 'copter, set him down, and all get the hell out of there.

Apparently half way back to their base, my Dad sits up suddenly, looks around and says "How'd we get here?" or something like that. He says he has no recollection of actually being hit, but had the worst migraine of his life for about 2 days after wards. So, there you have it.

And no, he wasn't wearing a steel pot that deflected/slowed the round, just a boony hat. Apparently the men in my family actually ARE hard headed. ;) (Sorry, couldn't resist the horrible pun).
 
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After reading these experiences I've fully realized the need to get off the first shot and to make it count. Even if you don't die from a gunshot wound you'll, in all likelihood, suffer some rea pain. When it comes to pain I'm a first class CS!
 
Da** Sparks, I never got shot like that! Thank God!!

Yeah, makes me think all the time. It's funny how something as simple as 1 degree of angle can change a "grazing wound" into "no more brain matter". If I think about it too hard the whole not existing thing messes with me a bit too much.
 
When I was hit in the neck with a bullet "fragment" as the Police called it, I remember a bad burning sensation followed by a wave of pain.

When the devildog with 2/2 dropped a grenade at his feet and I tackled him, I remember the burn from being debreeded. They have this iodine brush that they use in a circular motion that has a burning sensation that rivals the onset of the wounds pain.

When a Glock KB'd in my hand last year all I remember is a numbing like when you sleep on your arm wrong.
 
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