Veterans’ firearm injuries

Justice

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Justice was around firearms from a young age and would go shooting with his parents and grandparents. “I’ve always been around firearms, probably from about five years old.” He shares that he was “very eager to learn” and that “it was always a very positive experience.” Justice joined the Army shortly after graduating from high school, where he continued to increase his knowledge and skills in handling and maintaining different kinds of firearms. “I was always interested in learning how to do the task better, and more efficient, and try to understand the weapon system as best I could.” 

After completing his time with the Army, Justice owns a firearm “for home self-defense.” He sees “guns as learning tools. I’ve always been a big supporter of having them in case you need them.” Justice experienced an injury to his hand when he “was trying to do a dry fire to cycle the weapon and the firearm discharged without me knowing a round’s in there.” The injury resulted in Justice losing approximately “80% of my left hand” and he went through months of physical therapy to help with the ongoing physical impacts. He struggled with coming to terms with what happened, sharing that “I’ve always tried to pride myself on my knowledge of firearms and safety with them. But probably for the first year-year and a half, it really affected me and it’s still one of my life’s greatest shames.” 

After his injury, Justice describes being diligent when it comes to firearm safety, saying that “I now have a visible reminder every day when I look at my hand. You can never be too careful around something that can protect you, but also damage you at the same time.” When asked about firearm injury prevention, he recommends having educational materials about firearm safety readily available for Veterans, even if they’ve had several years of experience and training. “It’s that overconfidence. That’s what got me, and I would hope if I had the opportunity to check myself a little bit more, it would’ve helped keep that from ever happening.” 

 

 

While cleaning his firearm, Justice was trying to do a dry fire not realizing he had loaded the magazine back in the gun.

While cleaning his firearm, Justice was trying to do a dry fire not realizing he had loaded the magazine back in the gun.

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Every time I went shooting, I’d be cleaning it or just give it regular maintenance. Oil it up, trying to make sure, preventative maintenance basically. And about a year into doing so, I was sitting in the living room. I was actually cooking a pizza and decided, “Well, I’ve got 30 minutes or so, let me clean my Glock out.”   

Yeah, I was cleaning my gun out, stripping it down, cleaning all the components, greasing it up, putting it back together. And I hadn’t realized I put a loaded magazine back into the chamber. I thought I had a dead magazine on me. Cocked the handgun back, was trying to do a dry fire to cycle the weapon and the firearm discharged without me knowing a round’s in there. And it went through the meaty part of my left hand just like if you’re holding your hand towards your face. Just to the left of my index finger and it passed just through. It was a hollow point. It tumbled through, went through a wall, ricocheted off my furnace and went into a doorframe.  

And after that, I was home alone. My girlfriend was working at the time. So, I got the gun down and away out of danger, held my hand up, got a towel wrapped around. Went to my parents’ house, which was next door, to see if anybody was home. Nobody was home. I had to call my grandmother, incidentally, to drive as not to worry about possibly bleeding out or like losing focus as I was driving. But I was able to get to the hospital. They got me patched up pretty good. The blood loss was barely minimal. No broken bones, but I lost probably 80% of my left hand—the thumb group muscle where if you clench your hand you see in between your index finger and your thumb muscle group, how it bulges out. Most of that is gone now. I got questioned there. They wanted to make sure it wasn’t like a suicidal action thing or anything like that. I explained to them what I was doing. They just wanted to make sure I was not feeling down on myself. I just told them it was just one dumb mistake and I had paid the consequence for it. 

But after the questioning, I had to get transferred up to [hospital] to get some stitches and everything. On the underside of my hand, there’s minimal scarring. It really wasn’t too bad. But the top basing, I guess, from the palm of your hand has been massively scarred. It was a hollow point round that tumbled through there. So, it took a good chunk of me with it. 

For what the damage could’ve been done, the injury was very minor in my opinion. I really got off scot-free. But I now have a visible reminder every day when I look at my hand. You can never be too careful around something that can protect you, but also damage you at the same time. I’ve always tried to pride myself on my knowledge of firearms and safety with them. But probably for the first year-year and a half, it really affected me and it’s still one of my life’s greatest shames. I really have trouble telling people about it.  

 

Justice has limited mobility in his hand after it was shot, and says he has “a visible reminder [of the injury] every day when I look at my hand.”

Justice has limited mobility in his hand after it was shot, and says he has “a visible reminder [of the injury] every day when I look at my hand.”

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Yeah, right after the incident until probably about month three, I couldn’t even clench my fist with my index finger. It was so taut—the tendon, and my muscle mass, and the flexing inward part. I could splay my finger out like when you open your hands all the way open to catch something. But when I would close my fist, I had such little force to move it with I couldn’t even make a fully closed fist. It almost looked like I was making a claw, I guess would be the best descriptor for it. But probably three months in to six months in, I finally was able to close my fist and get that range of function down. I still couldn’t pinch above probably 10 lbs. until nine months in and that was physical therapy. That was me using a gripping exercise weight at home. And during that timeframe, I actually was denied a couple of jobs because some jobs I was applying for required grip strength or pinch strength. I physically could not meet those requirements. 

So, I ended up doubling my efforts and by a year—year and a half in, I was able to get it back to almost probably 70% of what I used to be able to do. I’m probably only about 30% of the original mass I guess of the muscle that I lost. And I still cannot like I guess if you hold your hand out, you point your index finger towards the inside, I guess if that makes sense? Like you take your right index finger and you point to the left? I still could not do that at all with my injured finger. I have no ability to wag my finger on the injured side. I can close it. I can pick things up, but I have no sideward mobility with it at all anymore hardly.  

 

Justice describes his injury as “one of my life’s greatest shames.”

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Justice describes his injury as “one of my life’s greatest shames.”

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It bothered me heavily for probably the first year. I would even like if I wasn’t like thinking about a firearm, I would just occasionally like think back, kind of just replay what had happened in my head over and over. And just try to look for anything else I could’ve done differently. I’ve always tried to pride myself on my knowledge of firearms and safety with them. But probably for the first year-year and a half, it really affected me and it’s still one of my life’s greatest shames. I really have difficulty telling people about it. If I trust them I will. So, very sensitive to, like, jokes about it and stuff. I’ll tell people like, “Hey man”, like, “That’s probably the closest thing to PTSD I got, so please, please don’t be too rough on me.” 

Now it’s probably been 2-3 years. I can tell people about it without kind of reminiscing too deeply on it. It’s still my greatest shame, but it took probably a year-year and a half to really probably move on without thinking about it probably once a week and kind of internally reflecting on what had happened, I suppose you’d say. 

Probably the hardest thing, seeing my fiancée. Like she just looked extremely worried, and I didn’t want her to think any less of me. But she was very supportive and helped me out. She felt terrible because she had gotten called out of work to go see me at the hospital probably 30 minutes after it happened. 

Probably my biggest takeaway from all this was even when you are very shameful of what you have done—and this is just my personal experience—having a reminder sometimes is almost a blessing in disguise as it can help other people prevent it for themselves. That sounds kind of silly, but injuring myself has helped me. I will always have the reminder to help other people not to do the same thing. And I think some people may not ever see it that way. But I hope if they can, it will help them move past it.

 

Justice describes the main difference between military training and civilian firearm training.

Justice describes the main difference between military training and civilian firearm training.

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Probably, the biggest differing factor, I would have to say, is the amount of time you’re almost forced to become accustomed to anything you use. You could buy a gun and not touch it for a year and you could fall out of a routine with it and almost forget how to properly function it. But in the military, if you use something, you probably have upwards of 60-70 hours working a firearm before you even really like shoot rounds down range outside of the controlled, like a perfectly controlled environment like a fire range. I mean, to even get to the firing range you’ve got to get issued the weapon. You’re cleaning the weapon constantly. You’re learning the safety functions of the weapon. You’re learning what not to do with the weapon. You have 40 people around you with the same weapon who also know the same things to help police you up. As a civilian gun owner, unless you go out of your way to take the same steps, they aren’t as readily available as the military. I would say that is probably the biggest difference in my opinion.

 

Justice shares his thoughts on how the VA could share information about their work with accidental firearm injuries.

Justice shares his thoughts on how the VA could share information about their work with accidental firearm injuries.

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I think I was almost naïve in the thinking that, “Oh, it could never happen to a military person.” Maybe if you heard like, “We’ve helped this many people recover from accidental discharge,” you may be a little bit more aware of a problem, or if it’s happening around you. I think it’s just almost taken for granted, firearm safety is sometimes. And if you heard, not personal stories, but like it still does happen. So, please still be careful and observe what you’re doing. It may help some people take a step back and realize, “Well, if it happened with these guys, it could happen to me too.”

 

 

Justice reflects that his “biggest takeaway is, always understand what you are doing with a firearm.”

Justice reflects that his “biggest takeaway is, always understand what you are doing with a firearm.”

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Probably my biggest takeaway is always understand what you are doing with a firearm. Always double-check what you just did to the firearm if you’re unsure. And I know it sounds very silly, but when I had shot myself, my left hand was just passing in front of the barrel I thought as I was dry-clicking it. But it wasn’t a dry click. Keeping everything back away from the firearm. I know it’s one of the first things they tell you. But it caught up to me when I was alone in my house, you know? I was just cleaning my gun.  

You just always need to be mindful of the firearm because anywhere it’s pointing, you just need to treat that as the no-go zone. And I had done that for years and I just didn’t do it that that one time. So, it’s always being mindful where it’s going, just always be observant of what you’re doing was the biggest thing for me afterwards, I think. 

 

For Justice, it was helpful when people asked about what happened because it helped him make sense of the experience.

For Justice, it was helpful when people asked about what happened because it helped him make sense of the experience.

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I think some people may just jump to, “Well, hey. You shouldn’t have done that.” Well, if they have already injured themselves, they are already deeply aware of what they had done wrong and the load’s already on them, heavy enough. So, just try to be supportive and let them take their time. When they’re comfortable talking about it, just talk to them about it, and just hear what they have to say I think would be the biggest thing that helped with me especially. Just like people asking what had happened, me being able to put it into words instead of just in my head worrying about it, you know. That really helps me kind of rationalize I guess what had happened. 

 

Justice feels clinicians need to be “a little bit more persistent” when asking firearm injury patients if they are interested in mental health support.

Justice feels clinicians need to be “a little bit more persistent” when asking firearm injury patients if they are interested in mental health support.

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Maybe trying to just double-check mentally-wise if the patient’s doing okay. I guess I was very adamant. I think they asked me multiple times if I need to seek mental health. I just felt comfortable enough doing it without it. But some people may be not wanting to do it, but deep down probably do need it. So, maybe just being a little bit more persistent, just double-check and like, “No pressure. Are you okay? Do you need therapy?” would probably be my biggest advice I guess, because I think some people would just be too uncomfortable taking that leap maybe if it wasn’t for them being just a little bit more persistent, you know? And like, “We’re here to help you if there’s anything we can do, or try to help.”

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