Veterans’ firearm injuries

For William B, unresolved mental health struggles and compounding life stressors became too much.

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For William B, unresolved mental health struggles and compounding life stressors became too much.

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I went to get service on my own, like the VA. I fought with the VA, fought with the VA so I could get medication to help. Of course, the VA, I had to give certain things and whatever. So, that never ended up happening, never got really anything that would help. And after, about 11 years after I got out, I had too much of a load then. I’ve worked on building a new home and getting some things done. And one day I just decided I’d had enough. It was time for a change. I couldn’t put up with it. I don’t sleep at night. I don’t function right. And then I got a bad back, and ankle, and neck, and shoulders, and everything else. I can’t do what I want to do. And I’m 42 years old. I want to – I want to do things that I just can’t do. It’s impossible. And so, and it was all piling up on me, piling up on me. I talked to the VA about, you know, the help and this and that. And ah, we’ll give you this. We’ll give you that. We’ll give you 1,800 medicines if, you know, we think that that’s what you should be on. You can eat them in the morning with a spoon and a bowl, like cereal. But it’s, if it don’t help, it don’t help.

I’d had some jobs. And like I said, with the mental things and stuff, you begin jobs there, you get like bored and tired. And you start spinning your wheels, whatever, and it’s time to change jobs. So, you change them. So, I just rode it around, did this, did that, whatever. And I got – finally, I got a good company, a big company, oil and gas that hired me making good money - $26 – 7 an hour back in 2012 – 13, somewhere in there. Hired me because I was a disabled Veteran. Perfect. Went to work for them. A couple weeks go by. I had to go take their NDOT class and all that where they get your medical history and dah, dah, dah, dah, dah, dah. Before the class was over, I was fired.

You know, that stuff weighs on a person. You sit every day and worry. How am I going to make the bills this month? How am I going to do this? Whatever. You know. First, you got to worry about the bills. Then you got to worry about having food, eat, and everything else. And it’s like it gets to you. And like I said, I – one day I just – I had had enough. Can’t sleep at night. So, you’re not rested. You’re not – you’re tired and everything adds up.

So, I just walked down to the house. And I was there. I got a 12-gauge and a deer slide. Yeah, thought I’d just take care of the problem. Walked out back and shot myself in the face. It was – I don’t know – I don’t know how long it was. It could’ve been minutes. Could’ve been hours. I don’t know where I found – but I came back to, and I called for help. And thankfully I called the local fire chief at his home. He come straight in his personal truck when I told him what I’d done. He put me in his personal truck to make the life flight about six miles down the road. And sent me to a civilian hospital.

I’m still here. So, I’ve decided instead of getting to that, I’m going to try to do every – anything I can to help others that are in the same position that I am.

William B says, physically, his injury has “slowed me down at least 50 percent.”

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William B says, physically, his injury has “slowed me down at least 50 percent.”

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I was in a coma for some time. When I come out of the coma and finally was ready to get out of ICU, which was another week or two later, they sent me to a third civilian hospital where I could get my trach took out, my feeding tube took out. They could make sure that I got back to where I could walk decently, stuff like that from being in a bed for so long.

I can’t tell you whether it was a month or two, but it was a lot. I done had seven or nine, or something facial surgeries. Then I still had the trach in. I had a feeding tube. I don’t how much time lapsed there. I never really looked into it and I don’t remember even exactly when I got out of the hospital now so, to even give you a real good guess. But I know it was before the first of the following year.

The physical impacts, I’m still missing a good deal of my upper jaw. I have three teeth that’s about shot to chew on where all my teeth were knocked out. My left nostril is about closed off for the second time. I said I had all them surgeries. All of them worked but one, and the VA only done one. Well, the VA went in, and it was kind of a – they tried to open my nostril back up, basically, so I could breathe better. So, I could actually – so, I can get my wind to do more. It just grows back shut. And it was never opened the way I wanted – asked and wanted it to be. It was, at best, half ass. And yeah, it’s hard. You don’t eat right because you can’t chew food. You don’t breathe right so you don’t get the oxygen that you need. It’s hard on a person. You cannot do the things that you want or need to do. I would say if – I – it has slowed me down at least 50 percent at – from before the day I shot myself as far as physical capabilities.

For William B, firearms have been part of his life for as long as he can remember.

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For William B, firearms have been part of his life for as long as he can remember.

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I guess a little of just the short and sweet of the background of firearms, I’ve had them for as long as I can remember. I mean first grade of school, so that would’ve made me like six. I shot my first deer. I hunted, and fished, and camped and all that my whole life. At 14, I started butchering cattle and hogs and stuff like that. So, I’ve had, I mean I’ve had a gun in my hand my whole life. It just wasn’t – I’ve lived out in the country since I was six. It was just the normal thing for a kid to do, or a normal thing. Because I didn’t do sports and that kind of thing, so that’s what I did.

You know, a hunter safety course was read to me by the game warden. And he checked the answers on the test. I was that young. I couldn’t read the test. So, I – importance of safety and all that, it stands that I was fully aware and well educated as far as that went.

William B explains the effectiveness of firearm safety devices.

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William B explains the effectiveness of firearm safety devices.

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You know you can have a gun sitting in the corner of your house with a trigger lock on it or a safety lock on it and a kid cannot pick it up and in advertently hurt themselves with it or somebody else. I believe they work. I just – I got enough, and I’ve been around them enough and stuff that I went and spent the money, and I bought a vault. So, that there is no question. I don’t have to worry about it. Yes, trigger locks. Magazines – or chamber locks, trigger locks, safety locks, they work. Implemented and used correctly, they will work. That is fine, yes, hundred percent.

William B stresses the importance of advocating for yourself and finding the right care.

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Another Veteran in a similar situation, I would tell, “I understand you’re not getting what you need. I’m here. If you need to talk to me, talk to me. I can tell you what I’ve been through, what I went through, what I’ve found that works for me. It might not work for you. I don’t know. But it works for me. It gives you an option. Try and seek civilian care. There’s your two options. Have you talked to your VA about your problems? Another option.” They could say, “Yes, I have and I’m not getting the help the same as you wasn’t.”

Okay. Well then, you need to seek other care. Or wait, before you even seek civilian care, maybe talk to your provider. It might be one of my friends from the service that lives in California not Ohio or Florida or whatever. Maybe try and talk to your provider. Explain to him what’s going on, and how you’re feeling. And maybe they will help you. Because there are, I guess, some good VA medical centers out there. I have a friend from when I was in that lives in Michigan. He gets phenomenal care through a VA system up there. So, but if you’re not getting care and your VA isn’t working with you, then you need to seek other care. Whether that be mental health, physical health, it don’t matter. But if your VA’s not going to do it, you have to – instead of doing like me and just shutting down and saying fuck it, take one more step of initiative and think of your own wellbeing and go to a different source.

William B thinks clinicians should familiarize themselves with their patients’ medical records.

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What kind of medical care? There’s none. There is no medical care there. The other day up there when that doctor was on the TV talking to me, and I asked for an inhaler, she tells me, “Well you know, sir, if you’d quit smoking, you’d breathe better.” I says, “Yeah, ma’am, I do know that.” I said, “I also know if I didn’t stick a 12-gauge barrel in my mouth and blow all my sinuses out I’d breathe better. And that’s why I got an inhaler. Well, you know if you’d have read my medical record, you’d see why I was prescribed the inhaler too.”