Worst Shooting Injury?

I've had a blister on my trigger finger from shooting my colt pony too much the first time I got it. It's a small gun so my finger was rubbing on the trigger gaurd a bit. Really haven't had any accidents with firearms.

On a recent camping/shooting trip, one of my friends was shooting my AR-15 from the prone position and me and another friend were standing behind him. My second friend gets it in his head that he's going to catch one of the brass casings flying from the rifle. He's crouching down, trying to catch one and I told him: "It's going to be hot! You're going to get burned." He finally caught one, screamed, dropped it then ran to get water on his hand. :) Later he told me, "I thought it was just going to be hot like bouncing it between my hands hot." Not too bright.


------------------
The first step is registration, the second step is confiscation, the final step is subjugation.
 
Aside from the odd piece of hot brass down the front of my shirt or bouncing off my head, I've been pretty lucky. Have had a few slide bites from small pistols (PPK/S, P232, Tomcat). The Tomcat was the worst, bled like a SOB. No stitches though. M2
 
A friend had/bought a 458 win mag. We were both about 17 at the time. The bruise on my shoulder and arm lasted about 2 weeks.

The only other is the first time I sighted my hunting rifle (did'nt bore site it first). Took forever and I flinched the more I shot it. Sore shoulder again.
 
22 LR case went down my shirt and burned a perfect case-shaped mark into my belly.

Lesson:

Don't wear shorts, sandals, or open shirts to the range...even when it is 105 degrees!
 
The worst shooting injury I've had was a bruised shoulder from a really great day trap shooting with friends. I was actually kind of sad when the soreness wore off, as it was a reminder of the fun day. :)

I was involved in a more serious hunting accident when I was around 13, but there was no gun involved.

Dad took my brother and me out frogging.

(For those of you who haven't had the pleasure, that's where you hunt frogs ... yes, really ... with something called a frog gig. A gig looks like a small, three pronged pitch fork except the points are really really sharp. When you find one, you shine a flashlight in their eyes so they won't move, then you gig them, and toss them into a gunny sack. When you get home you cut their legs off and roll the legs in dixie fry and deep fry them. It's a delicacy in some of the more frightening parts of the world.)

Anyway, I was carying my gig the wrong way up and stepped on a slick spot in the mud next to the pond. I slid and jammed the gig into my ribs, right to the bone. 45King was complaining about being embarassed by a pair of pink boxer shorts. Try being a 13 year old girl who has to lift up her shirt so her father, her father's buddy and her brother can make sure she's not about to die.

When we got to the emergency room, after I'd been all x-rayed and bandaged and fixed up, the doc asked, "Now what exactly did you do?" and we tried to explain to him what we'd been doing. He turned green and informed us that he thought that he'd heard everything until we came along!

The next day, dad was explaining to his buddy what had happened. "If I had arrived one second later, she would have been a goner," he said. "When I got there her brother had her stuffed in the sack and was standing over her with his pocket knife out trying to get her legs off."

pax

"I like to think of anything stupid I've done as a learning experience." -- PJ O'Rourke
 
The scar on my forehead is almost gone now and I've stopped screaching "I'm going to die" every time I fire a shot.

Don
 
Wasn't there to see it, but...

One of my elementary school buds came to school one day with crutches. Asked him what happened. He owned a Benjamin .22 pellet rifle, which I had shot before. He took a friend "hunting" at the bayou (as we often did.) The Benjamin trigger was pretty light. He and the friend were walking side by side, with the gun pumped to 10 pumps (the maximum), the friend holding it. It discharged at point blank range into my friend's thigh. Penetrated so far that the doctor removed it easily from the other side.

Great lesson in safe gun handling to me and classmates. The friend had violated two of the prime directives:

1) Don't let the muzzle cover anything you're not willing to destroy.
2) Don't put your finger on the trigger until you're ready to pull it.

We were all a little more conscientious after that.

Also a great example of the penetrating power of a .22 pellet gun at short range!
 
A lady I used to work with had a not overly bright kid (typical white 'burb kid, wants to be Ice T or something...) who managed to get shot by his best friend while horsing around with a CO/2 BB pistol. Went right through the sternum, and stopped just short of the pericardial membrane...
 
havent had a any bad incidents yet. knock on wood. however had a couple of close call. Went out hunting with while in 10th grade with another kid who had the land but I wasn't real sure about him. (remeber the phrase trust your insticts?)

We went and he was on my left. Btw it was pheasant hunting so both he and I were using 4's. A covey of quail got up on my right. He swung and fired. I heard whistling and tugs on my hair. ended up getting 5 grooves in my hair and a nick on my left ear.

Did'nt hit him could'nt do anything cept just stand there. After the shock wore off we had a come to Jesus meeting.

Had a buddy that got shot thru the hand. had to get pins and reconstructive on the bones. told the girlfriend to check it before she cleaned it. she checked it by pulling the trigger. He told the docs and P.D that he did it cleaning the gun. Like he said she was fairly new to shooting and felt bad enough with out it turning into a big investigation.

Best wishes Be safe Poacher.
 
I caught a slug from a .357 in the back of the head after it ricocheted off something down range. Guy several lanes over (who was shooting like an idiot) disappears no longer than 10 seconds after he figured out what happened! He left so quickly he didn't even pay for his range time!! To top it all off, I picked up the bullet and complained to the nearest gun shop employee who completely blew it off. He thought I made the whole thing up. Nevermind the gash on the back of my head oozin' blood.

At any rate..

I can't say its the worst NON-firearms related injury.. but I was wiring up a 240 volt outlet at work today when a coworker flipped the circuit back on.. "Hey Aaron, did you turn off #24 in panel H?" "Ye--" ZZZZZAAAAAAAPPPP!!! "What tha !@#$%^&* are you doin'!!" Okay. I don't know what hurt worse. The voltage, or me bangin' my head on the top of the counter I was working under. :mad:

------------------
WARNING: This post may be another "self-aggrandizing attempt to cause needless controversy, argument, distraction"
-*-
Keepin' the FUD Legacy Alive! Check us out @ FUD's Fan Club!
 
Worst thing that happened to me personally was when a Smith 629 trigger ripped a flap of skin off my trigger finger after about 20 rounds of Federal 180 grain loads...nothing too serious, I taped a piece of paper towel over it and kept shooting. :D
I DID have a friend that got hit in the leg by ricocheting jacket fragments at an indoor range once. Went deep into his calf...they had to take him to the ER and dig it out.
 
Well, lets see.
Non-Firearm wounds would be:
1. All fingers, toes broken.
2. Wrists broken.
3. Ankle Broken. (2 times)
4. Both collarbones.
5. 6 Ribs broken.
6. Separated Tendons from shoulderblade.
7. Oh and this is a good one...Piece of rebar went into my thigh at knee level and ended up in my hip with me hanging on.
8. Stab wound in back.
9. Slash wound in chest.

Firearm-related injuries would be:
1. .22 slug high in my shoulder (still there)
2. 9mm hole in thigh
3. Minor wound from 7.62x39 in side of abdomen. (near graze wound, lots of flesh, fat gone, no organ damage)
4. .223 minor wound in leg (same type wound as above, but a bit of muscle went with it)
5. Unknown caliber in shoulder wound. (was in Africa at long range and the round was too damaged for me to tell, but looked like a LRN 9mm. If anyone is good at guessing on deformed slugs, I'll post a pic.

I've led an ....interesting life.
damiano
 
Gopher, liked your story about the guy getting hit in the butt. He responded correctly. I never even thought of suing the club hosting the match where I got hit, or even asking them to compensate me for the ER visit later. I figured I made a choice to do something that involved an element of danger, and wound up on the wrong end of the odds, so no one was to blame except me. Freak stuff happens.

Bogie, the doc I saw said the same thing. He could remove the fragment, but he'd probably do more injury to my leg trying to find it than would occur if I just left it alone. He said if it ever started hurting or moving around, then might be the time to remove it. It's been 9 years, and still OK. Guess I'll go to my grave with that bit of metal still there.

Mike I.: OUCH! Double OUCH! I cought a jacket fragment in the wrist one time while letting a friend shoot my Super Blackhawk. I was standing to the side, behind the muzzle, but lined up with the cylinder gap. It was very minor, but it learned me the lesson to stand well behind someone shooting a revolver.

Pax: Hey, I've gigged my share of bullyfrogs. Dadgum, you are lucky to be alive! I think you win the "embarassment factor contest." :)

Poacher: Whew! I think I'd have found something to beat him with....after I stopped shaking like a leaf in a hurricane.

Boy, some of you have indeed led some interesting lives!

I've also suffered "scope eye" and brass burns, and once had my thumb chewed up pretty good by the cylinder release on a M19 round-butt 2.5" w/full house loads.

I wasn't there to see this, but this is an amusing story that happened to an aquaintance. We were in our early teens.

A fellow named Sid Y. was out hunting with some other friends. Someone accidentally fired a .410, and the charge hit Sid in his butt.
At this time, we didn't have an EMT service (this was a small South Carolina town in the late 60's,) and the only ambulance in town did double duty as the hearse for the local funeral home. The guys panicked, and instead of taking Sid to the hospital ER, they took him to the funeral home for transport to the hospital. One of them called Sid's mother from the funeral home, and was a bit too terse in what he said to her: "Mrs. Y., Sid's been shot, and we're at the funeral home!" Then he hung up!
Sid recovered, with only a chunk o' cheek missing, but I don't think Mrs. Y. ever fully recovered from the shock.


------------------
Shoot straight & make big holes, regards, Richard at The Shottist's Center
 
Pax’s story reminded me of this Darwin award winner. Two guys in Arkansas were gigging frogs one night. Driving back home the lights go out on the truck. They figure out they need a fuse but don’t have one. Rummaging around they find a 22 rimfire shell that just happens to fit the fuse holder. A few miles down the road the shell heats up enough to fire, hitting the driver in the right testicle. He loses control and crashes the truck, both guys are injured. When his wife was told her husband had crashed the truck and was in the hospital, she asked, did somebody get the frog legs out of the truck?
 
Some things are learned the hard way...A friend of mine was learning to shoot his cap and ball revolver and neglected to smear some grease around the cylinder end. The resulting 'chain fire' when four out of six loads went off at once ruined the cylinder and he recieved some burns and a few metal splinters in his forearm. Lucky he didn't lose his hand. I have had a few small but painful powder burns from over priming flash-pans on flinters. When I first started shooting a flintlock I wasn't aware of the delay between the flash in the pan and the detonation of the charge and the implulse to relax my grip caused the pistol to roll backwards and up during recoil giving me a nasty pinch between thumb and fore-finger. I've had hot and sharp fragments of caps get between my hand and the grip. More of a nusiance than a danger. I saw a fellow break his thumb when firing a Luger by mistakenly resting his thumb on the back of the slide behind the toggle. I got a black eye once from an M1 when I hugged the stock too far up. ( I'll bet that has happened to many.) Other than those things I've been accident free. It's almost guaranteed that burns and cuts and blisters will happen when you are learning to shoot black powder. Bandaids and burn creme are almost as necessary as shot and powder the first few times.
 
Talking about gigging things...

I didn't get hurt, but boy was I embarassed...

My friends and I were night spear fishing. You hang a lantern at the front of the boat, and the bugs come to the light, which attracts the fish (ok, not entirely legal where we were :) ).

Anyway, we're very slowly moving, the water is absolutely crystal clear, and I see a very nice fish, so I take toss at it.

Know what happens when you throw a 5 foot gig with with a 2 foot strap into 10 feet of water?

Yep, you take a swim! :)

------------------
Smith & Wesson is dead to me.

If you want a Smith & Wesson, buy USED!
 
Back
Top