Veterans’ firearm injuries

Sam

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Sam considers himself a “country boy, grew up around firearms. I think I was five years old and got my first BB gun and just seemed like got a new firearm every few years. I was always comfortable around them.”  He joined the Navy, “so I didn’t have a whole lot to do with firearms, but we did have to stand watches whenever our ship would pull into a foreign port or another port. We had training, we had to do gun qualifications every so often to qualify to make sure that you still know how to do everything you needed to do with them and you aren’t going to hurt yourself or someone else.” 

At the time he was accidently shot by his friend, Sam was “sitting on my couch cleaning some of my firearms, breaking them down and cleaning them, and a guy that lives down the street came over...My mistake was just making an assumption that because he was a country boy as well that he knew what I knew and there wouldn’t be any issue.”  

As a result of his injury, Sam has “a lot of nerve damage. I guess it went through some tendons or something in the muscles that caused I don’t have any feelings in my foot from my big toe to my small toe. It’s like there’s no feeling there. I have a weird limp that it causes me to walk a little funny.” 

For Sam, “the thing that makes me feel the most comfortable with having any type of firearm would be just knowing that I have the security and knowing that if things were to really get bad as far as like that I had to use it to survive to go and hunt something to eat. I like to think that firearms are a tool for survival.”

Reflecting on his injury, “the very first thing you should know about firearms is just to make sure that there’s nothing in the chamber, and I just made that assumption and it was a bad one and it cost me.”  For Sam, the biggest takeaway from his experience “is that everyone that owns a firearm, never make any assumptions that the next person knows, and then with the safety course prior to ownership could not be a bad thing.”

 

While helping clean his firearms, a friend removed the magazine from Sam’s gun, “but didn’t make sure there wasn’t one in the chamber.”

While helping clean his firearms, a friend removed the magazine from Sam’s gun, “but didn’t make sure there wasn’t one in the chamber.”

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I guess it was probably just a few years ago. I was sitting on my couch cleaning some of my firearms, breaking them down and cleaning them, and a guy that lives down the street came over. We sat down and he wanted to participate. My biggest mistake in all of this was -- you know, I don’t blame him at all. My mistake was just making an assumption that because he was a country boy as well, that he knew what I knew and there wouldn’t be any issue. 

So, the particular firearm that he had, he was sitting at the end of the couch to the right of me. The firearm he had was a handgun and the way that you break it down, he took the magazine out -- but one thing, I should back up and say is most of my guns in my home are loaded. They stay loaded. I don’t have any children. I never had any children. I don’t have a wife. I live by myself. And my closest neighbor is down the road. So, very little chance of anyone getting hurt by these firearms besides myself. 

Anyway, the handgun that he had, he took the magazine out of it, but he didn’t check the chamber to make sure there wasn’t one in the chamber. This particular gun, the way it’s broken down is you have to pull the trigger before it allows you to take off the top slide to take the receiver off to get to the barrel. Well, when he pulled the trigger, it went off and it went through my leg, my calf, below my knee, above my ankle. Fortunately, it didn’t hit the bone at all. It just went clean through. 

Anyway, I got him to bring me to the hospital. It was not a bad injury that day. It was painful and it wasn’t fun at all. That day it wasn’t bad. But now, I have a lot of nerve damage. I guess it went through some tendons or something in the muscles that caused -- I don’t have any feelings in my foot from my big toe to my small toe. It’s like there’s just no feeling there. I have a weird limp that it causes me to walk a little funny. 

I guess going back, the assumption that I made and just thinking that everybody that knows anything, the very first thing you should know about firearms is just to make sure that there’s nothing in the chamber, and I just made that assumption, and it was a bad one and it cost me. 

Everything that I’ve been taught my whole life, I didn’t put that into practice, and that’s why I got injured. If I had put it into practice what I’d been taught, then I would’ve never handed him a loaded gun. So, I just feel like this was my fault in every way.

 

Although he initially didn’t think his injury was bad, Sam now experiences nerve damage and a limp when he walks.

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Although he initially didn’t think his injury was bad, Sam now experiences nerve damage and a limp when he walks.

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Well, when he pulled the trigger, it went off and it went through my leg, my calf, below my knee, above my ankle. Fortunately, it didn’t hit the bone at all. It just went clean through. Anyway, I got him to bring me to the hospital. It was not a bad injury that day. It was painful and it wasn’t fun at all. That day it wasn’t bad. But now, I have a lot of nerve damage. I guess it went through some tendons or something in the muscles that caused... I don’t have any feelings in my foot from my big toe to my small toe. It’s like there’s no feeling there. And I have a weird limp that causes me to walk a little funny. At the time, it was just what I believed a clean straight-through wound, so the hole… the side of my leg that the bullet exited, it was a larger wound than where it entered, so they just put a few stitches there and they just bandaged both sides and that was it that day. My problems didn’t come in until, as it was healing and then thereafter when I started to first realize this nerve damage and things that I couldn’t do that I could do before, like my leg moving in certain ways and no feeling in my toes, stuff like that. But when it first happened, I just thought it was a simple, clean wound and that was it. So, as far as getting any special care that day, no care was given other than just basic stitches and treatment. That was it.  

 

Sam describes growing up with firearms around and remembers always being comfortable with them.

Sam describes growing up with firearms around and remembers always being comfortable with them.

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What ended up happening, I live in the country, Mississippi, country boy, grew up around firearms in Louisiana, that’s where I was born, and we always had firearms. I think I was five years old and got my first BB gun and just seemed like I got a new firearm every few years. I was always comfortable around them. I never had any problem with them.

From a very young age just with the BB guns shooting cans and targets in the yard, but I got my first rifle, which would be a .22 rifle caliber, and then my first shotgun was a 20-gauge single-shot shotgun. My dad would take me hunting, squirrel hunting and various things. But, yeah, I grew up -- they were in the house and they were literally just in the corners, like in the rooms, just leaning in the corner, up against the wall. I was just so used to them. It wasn’t like these days, I would never, if I had children or anyone that lived with me, I would never just leave guns laying around, especially loaded. But back then, when I was younger, we just knew better. Even at a young age, we just didn’t play with them. If we weren’t using them as a tool to go out and do what they’re meant for -- if we weren’t doing that, we didn’t play with them. We didn’t mess with them. We just knew better.

 

Sam doesn’t participate in activities that involve firearms and says that these days, “they sit there and they just collect dust.”

Sam doesn’t participate in activities that involve firearms and says that these days, “they sit there and they just collect dust.”

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I do own quite a few and maybe when I was a little bit younger, I used to enjoy going out in the woods and shooting things, targets and stuffs. I wasn’t never, really been too big into hunting. I’m a fisherman. That’s my hobby. I never really cared too much for killing animals. Now, if I had to survive, absolutely would, and I wouldn’t have any issue about it. But I don’t have to do that to survive so, I never really got into hunting. So, when I would go out and shoot any of the firearms I had, it was just mainly shooting at targets and kind of for fun. But in the last few years, I haven’t used them at all. They’re just in the home and they sit there and they just collect dust. 

 

Sam doesn’t feel that it’s likely that someone will break into his home, but says, “if it ever occurred, my stuff would be ready.”

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Sam doesn’t feel that it’s likely that someone will break into his home, but says, “if it ever occurred, my stuff would be ready.”

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For me, like I said, living in the country, I don’t feel that anyone is just going to break into my home and I would need to call on one for protection. But, I guess there’s really no real reason that I would have any of them loaded. I guess I’m just kind of the mindset of the old, “It’s better to have one and not need than to need it and not have it.” And if you have it and it’s not loaded and someone does happen to break in or you do have some major issue come up, if you’re trying to go and look for ammunition to put in, you’re as good as gone. Whatever’s going to happen, you failed your job of protecting your home if you’re looking for ammunition. I don’t think for any moment that anyone’s ever going to break into my home where I might need to do that, but if it ever occurred, my stuff would be ready.

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