Have You Ever Been Shot?

In My Humble Opinion
1

A co-worker and I were talking yesterday and the subject of gunshots came up. I related how I had been shot at in a former job, when I was videotaping the conditions in an apartment complex the city was attempting to raze due to drug activity. The co-worker is a Vietnam veteran and showed me a pretty big dimple in his calf where he was shot. He said that all he remembers of the event was a searing pain - as if someone had stuck a white hot poker into his calf. The rest, he said, is pretty much a blur because of the complete shit-storm he was in at the time.

Now to the question - have you ever received a gunshot wound and what was it like?

2

My uncle is a veteran state trooper, if you ever meet him and have a beer he’s inevitabley going to tell you that he was shot point blank in the sternum and everything else that led up to the event. Anecdotally, here is a brief synopsis.

It was 1995 and said uncle was on a routine traffic stop when he noticed the odd movement in the pick-up he just pulled over. Not taking any chances, he radioed for an assist and then proceeded to get out of his cruiser and approach the vehicle. The man in side was a large husky guy, who seemed very agitated and uncooperative. The second cruiser arrived and my uncle asked the man to please step out of the vehicle. The man essentially jumped out and stood infrom of my uncle. The other two officers were walking towards him. My uncle asked the man to please step to the back of the vehicle. With this the man stood up, started walking and them turned drawing his weapon and fired one shot from about 6 feet away directly hitting my uncle in the chest. The other officers immediately took cover and began firing. The man was mortally wounded roughly 45 seconds later.
How’d it feel? He said he felt like he was hit dead square with a full on 20 pound sledge hammer. It knowed the wind out of him, and the consciousness out of his body…But he lived. The metal plated kevlar was what saved him, he had a broken sternum, and one broken rib and a cut on his neck from a fragment of the 38 calibre bullet that hit him. When we saw him in the hospital he had a dark purple almost black, black n’blue mark covering 30% of his entire torso…He still has the dented steel plate…wouldn’t you?

Another story you’d hear from the guy would be of the convenience store clerk who stopped a bullet (22) with a pocket calculator…:slight_smile:

3

please ignore the spelling…I’m doing several things at once here :slight_smile:

4

I was hit by a shotgun blast that riccoched off the surface of a stock tank by a friend that had gotton bored by the lack of dove and shot at a turtle head. Would have hit me in the face but I’d just stood and turned around and it caught me in the legs and ass, causing me to jump about three feet in the air out of surprise. None of the pellets penetrated my jeans and skin but they did sting like the dickens. He’d been about thirty yards away when he fired.

I riccoched one back at him later when he was bent over checking out a scorpion. None of the pellets penetrated his jeans either but a few did stick in his back since he was shirtless. I think we washed them out with beer.

5

I have been shot twice in a robbery gone wrong (there were residents in the building at the time, including me)–one bullet went into my shoulder, one grazed my leg. I was in a state of shock at the time, so I didn’t feel much until I arrived at the hospital…

6

Oh. My. God.

(cue the banjo music…)

7

Um…Lieu - …shirtless??? :dubious:

8

I would’ve been *scared * shirtless!

9

Yeah, I though he was hurt at first because he started screaming and flopping around on the bank. That’s unlike Duncan, in fact the only time I’d heard him scream before was when that aerosol can in the campfire blew up and shot into his chest like a missle. Still, we just picked the BBs out of his back, just like popping pimples, and went back to our hunting.

Admittedly though from then on whenever we wanted to shoot each other, we just shot up into the air and let the pellets rain down on each other instead of actually taking a bead on each other’s pond reflection.

10

What a fascinating life you must lead ! :slight_smile:

11

Um, isn’t this considered to be attempted murder?

12

I don’t think the scorpion was in any danger.

13

Hardly, JJ, considering the fact he’d just provided me with firsthand knowledge than such a scenario was indeed non-lethal.

Just two friends slapping each other on the back.

14

I didn’t mean to suggest that you really wanted your friend dead. But how would know that your shot wouldn’t cause some real harm? It’s not like you repeated the exact same scenario from which he got you. And his was an accident.

15

Decreased the distance before skipping, thereby increasing the angle and friction with the surface and slowing down the shot.

16

Wow. Interesting stories.

I haven’t been shot, but I used to work at a bank and was held up by Montreal Mafia.

I was thinking that being shot without knowing it was coming would be quite different than anticipating the bullet.

When the bank robber lept over the counter and I could see he was armed, I immediately became petrified. Couldn’t have moved or spoken if I wanted too. Then I began to shake like a little bunny. Thankfully I didn’t wet myself out of sheer terror, when the robber threw me to the floor. An employee tried to act brave (not wise) and I was afraid he’d get shot or I would. Luckily the robbers were pros – more interested in getting in and out of the bank with the cash, as quickly as possible, than murdering bank tellers. Police caught them red-handed near the Montreal border. They got 14 years.

17

I once took a depleted uranium tank round to the temple back in Iraq…damn the guys had a laugh about that…

18

Involuntary vasectomy at the very worst.
I once overheard a Vietnam vet talking at a bar so I bought him a drink and we ended up getting very, very drunk together. He said that he was some sort of special forces guy–I can’t recall which–and we had a good ole time. He showed me the scar in his side where he was shot. He said, and this I do remember, that it felt like getting hit by a sledge hammer.

19

I’ve never personally been shot with anything more powerful than a BB or a bottle rocket. A former roommate of mine has a good story though:

He’d just gotten a new car, or new to him at least, and was out in the north Georgia countryside for a drive late at night. A minivan pulled up behind him, then passed (this is on a little two-lane blacktop). As it was passing, he glanced over at it to see a handgun pointed at his head.

He ducked away just as the guy fired. The bullet, a .25 caliber, shattered the window and hit him in the face.

Here’s the amazing part: He’s a fairly heavyset guy, and has kind of big cheeks. The bullet entered his left cheek right next to the ear, and exited his left cheek right next to his nose. It essentially did no damage whatsoever. No muscle damage, no sinus damage, no nerve damage, just two neat little holes. It didn’t actually penetrate into his mouth at all, either.

A second bullet went into the car door. He pulled over as the minivan (which turned out to be stolen) drove off. They turned around and came back, so he floored it and leaned down as he drove past them. They drove off, so he pulled up to a farmhouse and knocked on the door, and the people inside called the cops (this was pre-cellphone days).

I got the call at home and drove to the hospital at about Warp Nine, and he was lying there, covered in blood and doped up, but essentially fine. The only lasting problem was that thousands of little tiny shards of glass had lodged in his neck when the window blew out and they would, for weeks or months afterward, fall out of his skin at strange times.

The local paper’s story about it quoted the sheriff as saying, “I can’t believe this guy’s luck. Another half-inch and we’d have a whodunit.”

20

I’ve never been shot but have been hit by small pieces of shrapnel twice. Once in the upper leg and a few days later in the forearm.

They were really, really, really hot and it really stung. But neither went in far, in fact the Corpsman pulled them out with tweezers. Didn’t even get a medivac.