Edward
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While raising his children, Edward refrained from keeping firearms in his home but as soon as his son turned eighteen, “we’ve had guns around the house. I just use them for an investment.” Edward had limited exposure to firearms in the military, only carrying “an M16 when I was in boot camp, and I never put my hands on another rifle all the time I was in the service. I carried a 38 because I was a helicopter crew chief.” At home he bought his first gun for personal use.
Target shooting with family on Christmas Day one year, “I thought I shot all the shells out of them when I didn’t and was going back to reload and it went off and went through my hand...I didn’t check to make sure all the rounds were out of it.” Edward went to the emergency room where “I think they put two stitches in it to stop the bleeding. No serious damage.”
The incident hasn’t changed how Edward feels about firearms, although he keeps his “hands off semiautomatics...Do not trust them.” Other than that, he attributes the events of that Christmas Day to “just carelessness on my part...You always handle a firearm like it’s loaded and I forgot about that. Most Veterans are pretty safe with firearms. We’ve been trained by the military to be safe with firearms from the M16s to your 38. You’re taught to be safe with them. I just got careless.”
Edward thought he had shot all the rounds in his firearm, but it discharged when he went to reload.
Edward thought he had shot all the rounds in his firearm, but it discharged when he went to reload.
The particular gun that I shot myself with, it was just carelessness. A little .25 semiautomatic and Raven had recalled them because the safeties didn’t work right. I actually had a person, an ex-brother-in-law that gave classes on gun safety and it went off accidentally on him too. Didn’t hurt him, just went through my wall. And we kept probably, I mean we didn’t know, we didn’t notice the circumstance behind it but we were up at my daughter-in-law’s parents’ house on Christmas Day and we were shooting my son’s .44, or my son’s Glock, 9 mm and I was shooting these little .225’s. I thought I shot all the shells out of them when I didn’t and was going back to reload and it went off and went off and went through my hand. I went to the emergency room up in Zachary and got all the movement, my fingers still, my fingers numb but everything works.
It was just carelessness on my part. I didn’t check to make sure all the rounds were out of it. We were just target shooting and I turned around to go back to the table to reload the magazine and I just wasn’t safe with it, and it went through my hand. Yep, and I said that it was better to happen to me than him or her.
Edward notes that treatment for his injury was straightforward and caused, “no serious damage.”
Edward notes that treatment for his injury was straightforward and caused, “no serious damage.”
I mean all I did is I took it, I put that, took a towel and put around it and kind of walked upfront and just, “honey, I shot myself.” So, they took me to the emergency room and they, yeah, they did, I think they did put two stitches in it to stop the bleeding. Other than that, yep. Full use of my hand. No serious damage except my ring fingers numb. That’s the one I shoot for my diabetes every day. I can’t feel the needle going in.