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Short of learning from personal experience (rather avoid that in this situation) is learning from a someone close to us. We have the benefit of learning from our brothers and sisters here at NWF. Thank you for sharing and continued prayers your way for continued healing.
 
Dang !:eek:
I thought it was bad when, a quick draw with live ammo
left a smoking hole in the ground alongside my right foot.:rolleyes:

You're DQ'd Capn!

Getting rid of it would be like not marrying a great looking woman because the first date went bad.

All my dates went bad... but not that bad!!!

Hey, I'm an INFJ. Most people like me who spent their life in Air Force Intelligence are the same or similar.

I'm an ISTJ... if you want to be sure something gets done, give it to an ISTJ. We love order and planning. Could be a mission planner but in Coast Guard Search and Rescue Aircrew we just say F it and jumped into the helo. :)

Wow, what a wake-up call. Presumably you've been handling firearms for years and things can still happen. Sometimes we get complacent. Well, it could've been a lot worse and your recovery appears to be coming right along. Over the past several decades, I've never kept a loaded gun in a safe for obvious reasons. It's easy enough to forget, especially when you have many guns. Having said this, only within the past couple of weeks have I stored a .38 Super loaded in a safe. I'm going to go right now and unload it. My excuse, I bought a new paddle holster for carry and I was trying it out, just decided to stick the whole rig back in the safe. I'm going back to my long standing practice of no loaded guns in a safe. Thanks for the reminder.

Yep, complacency is a battle... the longer we live the bigger the tendency. Also with age we get more brain farts. I used to keep my 2011 fully loaded and ready to go inside the safe just in case some robber was to force me to open the safe. With the new storage law that is coming, all our handguns will be loaded in the safe eh?
 
I admire you for being able to post about this. Many people would not want to confess to being careless with their firearms. It's easy to become complacent when handling firearms. This serves as a good lesson for the rest of us to always observe the 4 rules. Thank you for sharing your experience with us.
 
I was going to get you a Red Ryder BB gun for Christmas but.....

You'll shoot your eye out! :p

Glad you're healing up!
 
Wow, thank you for sharing! That takes courage, but it's important to remind us all of the lethal power we carry and to not be casual. This is a primary reason I'm against AIWB carry on a loaded chamber. No matter how careful, accidents happen.

You are so very lucky since that round could have gone anywhere - groin, femur, kneecap, stomach, etc. You are so lucky to have kept your foot too. Thank God for the skill and ability of medical science, and you were near a hospital.

Glad you are recovering well and it turned out okay. Scary stuff.
 
I was going to get you a Red Ryder BB gun for Christmas but.....

You'll shoot your eye out! :p

Glad you're healing up!
One of the best movies EVER. The only other time I've ever been shot was when I was nine years old back in Arkansas and my friend shot me with a .22 pellet out of a Benjamin Pump air rifle he'd gotten for Christmas. It didn't put my eye out, but it did bury itself up to the rim of the pellet on the right side of my chest. I and my buddies all decided to dig it out with a Boy Scout knife rather than tell our parents what really happened. I had to manage to not be seen without a shirt for almost a month so that it would heal up enough to just look like a mosquito bite I'd scratched open.
 
I admire you for being able to post about this. Many people would not want to confess to being careless with their firearms. It's easy to become complacent when handling firearms. This serves as a good lesson for the rest of us to always observe the 4 rules. Thank you for sharing your experience with us.
I started the original post maybe three times before I got up enough guts to write it up and post it. In the end, though, it actually helped me process the whole episode in a more positive manner. I have a lot of experience evaluating and working with people with trauma histories, so I knew at a cognitive level that I needed to really work on it before it worked on me. It wasn't the injury I caused to myself that's the problem. It's the injury I COULD have caused myself. Putting my thoughts down so early (the day after it happened) really helped, I think. I haven't had any problems with anxiety or other related issues. I'm actually amazed the original post came out as well as it did, since I was pretty stoned from all the anesthesia and the pain meds I was on the four days I was in the hospital.
 
Wow, what a wake-up call. Presumably you've been handling firearms for years and things can still happen. Sometimes we get complacent. Well, it could've been a lot worse and your recovery appears to be coming right along. Over the past several decades, I've never kept a loaded gun in a safe for obvious reasons. It's easy enough to forget, especially when you have many guns. Having said this, only within the past couple of weeks have I stored a .38 Super loaded in a safe. I'm going to go right now and unload it. My excuse, I bought a new paddle holster for carry and I was trying it out, just decided to stick the whole rig back in the safe. I'm going back to my long standing practice of no loaded guns in a safe. Thanks for the reminder.
All the guns in my safe are loaded. Even if they don't have cartridges or magazines in them. ;)
 
I like to think of myself as a manly man, but when I saw your wound photos I almost cried.

Glad you're doing so much better.

Merry Christmas!
Thanks. Where do you live in Texas? I was stationed out in San Angelo for about five years back in the mid-80s. And I went to grad school at Texas A&M in College Station after I retired from the Air Force. My wife's folks still live outside of Caldwell on a 480-acre ranch. We make it back there at least once a year, so if you're anywhere nearby let me know. I'd love to meet somebody who almost cried over my wound pictures. :)
 
Thank you for your self inflicted post. That took courage to do. Now that it is mostly behind you can you imagine what it would have been like to just take a slug of brandy or cheap whiskey along with 10 drops of laudanum and have that gun shot wound cleaned out using NO GENERAL Anesthesia? Of course you get that leather wrap to bite down upon. AUUGHHHH!! :)

Retired, (er ... retarded) RN.

Edited Extra ....
Also remember that shiet happens no matter what. Can we imagine how it would have been if you had been wearing the colors and had shot yourself during The War Between The States? Civil War.

More ...
The "surgeons" would have taken one good look at your foot gun shot wound and just would have wrapped it up and give you and it a couple or three days to see if it gets infected ... which it would. The only surgical solution THEN would have been the BONE SAW!! YIKES! :( :(

Then all the kids would tease you calling you "MR HOPKINS".

We are all so lucky living today.
 
Last Edited:
SynapticSilence,

We live out in the country between Dickinson and Alvin, Texas.

Sadly, not even close to the Texas areas you mentioned.

We live enough in the country, I've shot feral hogs from my back porch. Though due to constant destruction by feral hogs I've fenced the whole yard to keep them out. Before the fence installation, I would often find my yard looking like a root plow had gone through it. Feral hogs are highly destructive and one of the causes so many simply shoot them on sight and let the vultures eat them.

Pre-fence we we're often visited by Coyotes, Armadillos, Bobcats, Coons, Possums too and well, I'm sure you get the picture...Armadillos still visit as they burrow under the fence.

Little known fact: Armadillos often have leprosy that can be passed on to those humans who're susceptible to it. 3-5% of the human population are susceptible...

All right, I'll quit my rambling.

I'm very glad you're getting healed up and haired over.

Merry Christmas and (soon) Happy New Year!
 

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