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Colorado man reportedly shoots himself in foot to see what it feels like.

A Colorado man-- who police say was curious to see what being shot felt like-- reportedly sustained a non-life-threatening injury Wednesday night after he fired a single bullet into his foot.

The Denver Post reported that Adam Hirtle, 30, told a Colorado Springs officer that he purposely shot himself in the foot while inside his garage. Police told FoxNews.com that Hirtle used a .22 caliber, semi-automatic handgun.

The paper said initial reports indicated that the shooting was accidental.

Hirtle, who is expected to recover, is facing charges of reckless endangerment and prohibited use of weapons, 9 News <broken link removed>
 
It hurts. It hurts a lot, and I know exactly what it feels like.

Years ago, I was replacing the hvy galvanized wire that's used for tying up raspberry vines.
After I had tensioned the strand of wire real tight, I then looped the wire around the cedar post a couple of turns and tied it off. I then trimmed off the excess wire with my side cutters.
That 4" piece of trimmed wire that I snipped off, fell down into the tall grass next to the post, and after a couple of minutes looking for it, I gave up thinking it's no big deal.

A year later, I'm mowing the grass near the post and guess what, I found that piece of wire.
It came out of that mower so fast, it spun me around and knocked me off balance so quick, that I landed on my backside thinking I had been shot in the foot.
My right foot hurt so bad, I couldn't stand back up.

I looked down and saw a little piece of berry wire sticking out of the side of my sneaker, so I called my wife to get a pair of pliers to pull out what I thought was a little fragment of that berry wire I had given up for lost the year before.

What I didn't know was that it was still 4" long and it had shot through one side of my foot to the other side.
Being a dutiful wife, she grabbed the end of wire and pulled it out with a good yank.
I do remember almost blacking out with the pain it hurt so bad.

It only took a couple of stitches to close up the wound, but the pain was so throbbing great, that just to sleep, I had to take a cardboard box and cut a hole in the side to slip my foot into, so even the sheets weren't touching my foot.
I was on crutches for over three weeks.
 
I been shot in the leg. It didn't hurt much at all for a while. In fact for the whole way home (about a mile and a half that we ran) we did stop to tell the Lincoln girls what had happened. Then went to my buddies house to see if his grandma would just fix it up. But she said if it was a stab wound sure but for a bullet I should go to the hospital.

About the time I told mom what had happened (maybe a good 45 min after it happened) then it started hurting but as I remember it was the back of my head from the slap.

Slipped down a creek bank with a cocked single action .22 revolver in my left hand as I was getting ready to shoot a frog. The pistol fired when it was straight inline with my calf. Which the bullet then traveled about 6" down my calf just under the skin making a tunnel.

I think I was 14 or 15 at the time. We used to run all over creation with one firearm or the other. Wore out the screw holes in dads gun cabinet so bad I had to put toothpicks in them with glue to get the screws to stay put.

Ah the good old days.
 
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Wonder if he'll get insurance fraud too. Should health insurance pay to fix you up if you shoot yourself on purpose? Kinda like the guy who put fire insurance on his cigars then lit one up. Company got him for arson.
 
You make the 4th guy I have met that has shot himself in the leg w/a handgun

I knew a guy in Salem who was a Quick Draw competitor in the 60's and early 70's he had blow one of his knee caps off and put a hole in his upper leg on the other side. Walked with a limp.

In my case except for a good crewing out from my parents and 3 funny looking scars (where the doc opened the channel up to run a wash rag looking thing through it to clean the channel I suffered no ill results. I was very lucky.

The mistake was taking a step without looking down on steep ground. I had just cocked the hammer to fire at the frog when he made a short hop and was hidden by a small tree it was when I took a step to clear the line of sight that my foot hit about a 1.5" diameter chunk of tree limb laying on the ground. This caused my foot to jerk out in front of me and in the process of trying to regain my balance the cocked pistol in my left hand came in line with my leg and my hand tightened pulling the trigger.

It was akin to being ready to pull the trigger on a rifle and having someone slap you on the back.

I own it I did it I learned. No one else was hurt.
 
I knew a guy in Salem who was a Quick Draw competitor in the 60's and early 70's he had blow one of his knee caps off and put a hole in his upper leg on the other side. Walked with a limp.

In my case except for a good crewing out from my parents and 3 funny looking scars (where the doc opened the channel up to run a wash rag looking thing through it to clean the channel I suffered no ill results. I was very lucky.

The mistake was taking a step without looking down on steep ground. I had just cocked the hammer to fire at the frog when he made a short hop and was hidden by a small tree it was when I took a step to clear the line of sight that my foot hit about a 1.5" diameter chunk of tree limb laying on the ground. This caused my foot to jerk out in front of me and in the process of trying to regain my balance the cocked pistol in my left hand came in line with my leg and my hand tightened pulling the trigger.

It was akin to being ready to pull the trigger on a rifle and having someone slap you on the back.

I own it I did it I learned. No one else was hurt.

Thanks for posting that Mark W, great lesson for those that haven't had a misfire yet. Keep at it long enough and you will. If you've been shooting as long as some here and say you have never had an accidental discharge, your either damn lucky, or a great liar.
As for the idiot that did it on purpose, bet he won't do it twice.
 
My worst firearm eff up was when I was in my early twenties and tried to fan a Single Six cowboy style. Hammer took a nice divot of skin out of the palm of my hand.:eek: To do that you need a lot more of a hair trigger than stock.


Brutus out
 

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