Coming to terms with their experience

I know why a lot of guys wouldn’t want to share that. It’s embarrassing. You handle firearms for 30-odd years and never have an accident, and then you shoot yourself. It is. It’s a little embarrassing. But in my mind, it was more important and because I was already involved in teaching people firearms safety both in my past and had currently been involved in it, I felt like, why would I hide that? That’s a very important thing that these new shooters need to know about. That, no matter how experienced you are, if you’re not paying attention and if you’re not handling it safety you can be injured or killed. 

Interviewer:  Did it change the way you view firearms and how you interact with firearms?  

Respondent:  I think it just emphasized that I could not be complacent with them just because I’ve handled them for so many years. I had to pay attention. I had to make sure, just like the six-year-old told me, “I know what you did wrong.” Well, when I pick one up, I make sure it’s empty. I make sure that I check even if I just checked it. I don’t just assume it’s empty. I think it just emphasized safety for me a little more, where over the years I had gotten kind of complacent, I think.

What happened was there was a malfunction with the said rifle. And, you know, growing up with firearms and being in the military, I know better. I know better than, you know, to assume that there – you know, there possibly could be a round in the chamber. So, you have to clear your weapon to make sure that the magazine has been removed and there is no round chambered in the barrel that could possibly go off. And the day that occurred to me was a day I was frustrated with said air gun that I did not follow those steps that the military taught me, you know, to clear your weapon before you do any kind of work to the weapon. I just automatically assumed that the weapon, or the air gun, was out of pellets in the magazine and it didn’t dawn on me that there was one that was still chambered. 

I haven’t told anyone because to me it was totally my fault for disregarding, you know, safety practices of firearm safety, whether it’s a real firearm or an air gun such as this gun and incident. And it’s embarrassing for me to even bring that up for the simple fact that, “Hey, you’re ex-military. You’ve been to Iraq, Afghanistan.” You know, I was an MP soldier. So, I know better. You know. So, I know how to handle a firearm. The proper way to, you know, check the weapon to make sure there’s not one chambered. And I disregarded all that the day that, you know, I had this accident with my air gun. I disregarded all that. I was too focused on being upset because the silencer end cap blew off and all the internal parts blew out of the end of the cap. And I gathered everything up and screwed them back together again. Due to my anger, I did not follow through with making sure the gun was clear before retesting the gun out to see if it was fixed. I paid off that price. I shot myself in the finger.

The way I acted, it was always, “Oh, he’s, he’s a management problem. He’s a behavior problem. Here, write him a ticket.” Then I had, fortunately, a failed suicide attempt and was placed in mental health. It was basically a prison psychiatric hospitalization. Then I went into residential treatment. My psychiatrist quit and a new guy was hired and just happened he was leaving the VA to be a psychiatrist there. Ten minutes in his office, he’s like, “Man, you’ve been misdiagnosed. You don’t have bipolar. You have PTSD.” And so, through that, once, then being properly diagnosed, now I am on no psychiatric medication and the therapy has worked quite a bit. Well, Chance for Life has helped a lot. And so yeah, I’ve had extensive therapy. And I actually trained in a lot of stuff like drug counseling, like, to help other prisoners.  

Then the Chance for Life program, it’s not a mental health program, but it’s a lot of the same tools. Going through anger management, impulse control, communications, mediation, and I’ve taught all them to other prisoners. So, yeah, quite a bit of therapy and help. 

I would say in some instances I had to act like I was better than I was, well, better than I felt to make sure everybody else felt comfortable. Because as soon as I would, I went to the dark side, everybody, kind of, started to drown with me. There were definitely times of that. And they, I mean, it impacted. My partner and I dated a little bit prior to my injury. But after my injury, I mean, he's, he stuck by me and very much had to be a caregiver. 

Whereas, and now, it's completely shifted. I do as much on my own. But it's, we've had to work through all of it. But I do know, I mean, obviously I have a good one. But if times get hard, I know that he's going to stick around. So, everybody in my life has been really, really wonderful.  

And I've met an incredible community of people through the Reeve Foundation, through being around other people who were paralyzed, who are the most ridiculous group of humans you'll ever meet. So, I, as awful and traumatizing as it was, and I've have had, both myself and my mother have had extensive therapy. We're all in a good place now.

When I went to the Shepherd Center, part of your program there is you have to go to therapy. They recognize there that people are, have a fundamental shift in their existence. And then after I came home, I had a therapist that I'd been working with previously, prior to all this happening. And I called her up, and rolled in there, and said, "I'm back." And she's, like, "Are we going to talk about this?"

And I've seen her on and off since probably 2012 or '13. I don't see her as much anymore. And we constantly check in. And I have, you know, it's every time I have a trigger or if something happens or I have a weird dream, she's able to talk me through it. And so, I really feel like with trauma, the more you talk about it the less impact it has on you.  

I also have to give a great deal of credit to my hand surgeon and my physical therapist. They were very encouraging. They did so in a manner that was not just clinical. You know I wasn’t just a patient. I wasn’t just a paycheck, you know. And I think they both appreciated my progress because a lot of people don’t put that much effort into their own recovery.

But let this be a message to anybody in the medical field, doctors, nurses, therapists, pharmacists, if you treat that person like a person and they actually understand that you do have a lot of positive thoughts towards their wellbeing and that it matters, I think that means as much for recovery. I think after my first surgery, I probably would have recovered with some disability and a lot of pain for the rest of my life, but I was going to go on. I was encouraged to go farther and to push farther and to even just desire more. And it was in large part by those absolutely great human beings that also just happen to be a physical therapist and a great hand surgeon.

It was a pistol that a friend of mine's mom had purchased. And it was in her drawer. And they were surprised that the mom had a pistol in her drawer. And as he pulled it out of the drawer, it discharged. And so, they told me that this gun went off by itself. And then, I went through it, and of course, I went through it short of tearing it completely apart, but I cleaned it all up.   

And I took it out to the range, and I shot it. And it shot fine. And so, but then, so, and like I said, it was ten years, 12 years later, it was in my holster, and did the same thing it did to him. It discharged. So yeah, and I took it to the gunsmith, and I said, "If you can't fix it, then destroy it." I don't want it. But he did fix it. I still would never carry it cocked and locked on my side ever again  

It didn't change the way I feel about firearms. I just do not carry cocked and locked on my side any longer. It was a good impact and it was a good lesson. But I mostly keep my guns in perfect working order. I believe in, and probably overkill on my cleaning of my weapons, but that's okay. I don't carry broken guns anymore. 

You know, I did sit back and analyze, you know, ever since I had different firearms, and the incidents that I’ve been in with them, you know, I said to myself, “Hey, you know, you have been a lot of places.” I was raised in, you know, Miami and I used to walk and, you know, Miami was really high in crime. Been in North Carolina, New York, different places like that, traveling, you know, across town, mass transit, and never had a problem with anyone.  

But then, when I get a couple of firearms, here I am, two or three different times. Well, it’s best for you to leave it at home. You know, even though the one incident was at home. You know, like I said, I was jumped up, it was a different type. It was a revolver .357 where you don’t just pull the trigger; you have to cock it, and then fire it. And I was trying to show her how to do that but then, it slipped. And so, what it did, you know, when it went off, it went through the door, the wall, the door, and through all my kid’s clothes. You know, it was like, “Okay, maybe I’d better not have another firearm,” you know, because it could’ve got serious. You know, somebody could’ve got hurt or something like that. But, been pretty fortunate since those three incidents. Other than that, you know, even though I’m not supposed to have it, I still got to have it. You know, that’s just the American way, I guess.