Paul

The accident happened in 2017. I was carrying a Derringer .38 caliber in an open leather holster. No way to secure the weapon to keep it from falling out. I was in the restroom of my residence, and the weapon fell out of the holster and discharged by my boot and into my left foot side. A complete through-and-through. It made a 90-degree angle about midway and went upwards towards my talus and took out my talus. Busted it in half. That bone in my ankle which, of course, allows your foot to fully flex in an upward position, to the left and the right. 

My fiancée was with me. She was in the living room. It was a single-wide trailer. When the bullet discharged, I felt the pain and I was in disbelief simply because of the fact that I figured, or thought that a Derringer .38-caliber over and under barrels, the hammer was supposed to be fully to the rear, and the only way that the weapon would be discharged was if you pulled the trigger. 

It entered through my boot, like I said, into my foot and out. Being in shock and disbelief, I looked down because the weapon had fallen on the floor. It was a tile floor in the bathroom. I guess just the jarring of it hitting the floor caused it to discharge and, of course, looking down and seeing the weapon on the floor and blood squirting out of my boot, my reaction, of course, was -- well, my fiancée heard the firearm go off, and she responded with, “Are you okay?” And I said, “No. I just shot myself in the foot.” 

Called 911. And that was it. I knew where the bullet was. It didn’t go anywhere else. It didn’t kill anything. Didn’t injure anybody. Didn’t put any holes in the trailer that I’m going to have to explain to my landlord, so I was good to go.

I was sitting on the edge of the bathtub, dizzy and lightheaded. I fell backwards into the bathtub. I had the ambulance show up. I had three sheriff’s deputies respond. They picked up the firearm from the floor because when she was on the phone to the 911 dispatcher, the dispatcher told her not to pick up the firearm, to leave it exactly where it was. They put me in the ambulance and transported me to the hospital. I’m not sure exactly how long I was in the triage room before the doctor came in and told me he was taking me into surgery to remove the bullet and that I was going to be under anesthesia. 

My accident was just a ridiculous fluke that happened and wasn’t meant to happen. I realize that instead of the round going through my ankle, it could have gone upwards and could have hit me in the chest. It was a stupid thing to do. I’m never taking the firearm to the bathroom again. No open holsters and shit. There’s nothing to secure that thing inside the holster. That was the thing. You pull down your pants, you’re lucky if the damn thing doesn’t fall out and shoot you. 

I had two surgeries -- I’m sorry, three surgeries on my ankle. The first time to remove the bullet, the second time to remove bone fragments, and the third time to remove more bone fragments, and the doctor did some surgery on my ligaments. He cut the ligament, stretched it to take up some of the slack and sewed me up. So, since 2017, they put me on disability. 

At that time, I was a professional truck driver. I informed my supervisor that I was not able to use my left ankle to depress the clutch in the truck in a repetitive motion, so I had asked if they had an automatic that they could put me in, and they informed me that they did not, so I was terminated. That happened while I was still in my training period, and I obtained a representative for disability and went on full disability, since 2017.

I did go back and do a follow-up with him and it got to the point where even though my foot had been so swollen due to the injury and everything like that, I literally had to go from wearing a regular size 10 tennis shoe to a size 10-1/2 extra-wide on my left foot. So, I had to buy two different pairs of tennis shoes, one to fit my right foot, the regular 10-1/2, and then I had to go with an extra-wide in my left foot just so I could wear regular tennis shoes or whatever and not wear slippers or something like that wherever I went or stuff like that. 

Yeah. It was kind of a financial burden on that there having to buy two different pairs of shoes and you could only use one shoe out of each one. 

I had support from my family. I had more support from my fiancée because she was actually there when it happened. I believe if a family member is either a witness to the injury or hears about it, a brother, sister, father, or mother, they should be there because who knows? The individual may need somebody to talk to.  Most people feel more comfortable around family members, talking to family members instead of strangers. Unless the stranger were, in this case, a crisis management person who really cares about what happened, wants to hear the story and offers support and understanding. I believe family’s a big support -- can be a big support. For those that need outside family support or whatever, yeah, I fully believe that -- like I said, you got to talk about it. You can’t keep it all bottled up inside.

Upon my leaving the United States Army in 1990, I went directly into private security with a company. Worked with them for approximately a year and a half, two years. Started out as a basic officer and made the rank of sergeant within two months as a supervisor. After that, I moved. Continued to work private security at times. Obtained my concealed weapons permit and have owned a firearm since I got my concealed weapon license.  

It all depends on the situation that the healthcare provider and the individual are in. Everyone’s different, so a situation and the kind of assistance they could get would have to be pertaining to what their situation was. Honestly, I don’t think healthcare providers themselves are really concerned about support, or whatever, because they’re always quick to pass you off onto somebody else. Give you a phone number and say, “Hey, call this person,” or “Call this hotline,” or what have you. They don’t really want to go in depth with it because I’m sure they got 50 million things going on in their hospital or whatever. They got enough, they can’t be concerned about offering the type of support or talking to the individual that shot himself or got injured.