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On 7/28/2002 I was at home trying to clean my GLOCK-21 .45 caliber pistol when it went off. Apparently I forgot to take the bullet out of the chamber. It went through my abdomen.

I heard a thud on the wall behind me and my ears started ringing. While I was trying to think of why my ears were ringing, I felt a terrible burning all the way through me and it felt like someone had hit me in the back. I saw blood and realized I had shot myself. I grabbed the nearest phone, my cell phone, and called 911. It took what seemed like an eternity for the paramedics to get me to the ambulance and then I saw my sister-in-law and she said the paramedics had called my brother and that my family would meet me at the hospital.

The ambulance drove me about an eighth of a mile to a field nearby and loaded me in a life flight helicopter. After a very fast, cold and noisy flight I was in the E.R.

The pain was tremendous but the worst part was when the doctors put a tube in my nose and down my throat to vacuum out my stomach. This tube made me gag and throw up. This sucked because I had just eaten pizza.

The bullet passed through several things, one thing being my stomach. Which means that I puked up bloody pizza all over the hospital table and then all over my face. I was really freaking out because they were calling out my blood pressure every couple of seconds and it kept going down. I was glad to hear the doctors say they were going to rush me to the O.R., because I heard another one say there was blood in my urine. The doctors had stuck a total of four tubes in me before they knocked me out.

I woke up the next day in a morphine daze with a total of eight tubes hanging out of me including the breathing tube in my throat. I had to write out my thoughts on a note pad, as I couldn't talk. As bad as the pain was, the nightmares and hallucinations were even worse. I had one hallucination that my mom and the nurse were trying to kill me in a Vietnamese prison camp. Another was when one of my best friends came to visit me; all I remember is seeing her back as she walked away from me. Since I thought people were trying to kill me I thought I would never see her or any one else again and this truly scared the crap out of me.

Every one said I was wide-awake and being "charming" but all I saw was her walking away from me. When I was finally lucid the doctors said I had holes in and out of my stomach, spleen and left kidney. my kidney had a lot of damage but retained partial function and one of the 15 or so doctors who operated on me repaired the kidney so I could keep it. my spleen and stomach were repaired as well and about four months after the wound I have completely healed.

The pictures are of the stomach incision they had to make in order to take out all of my guts to repair and clean my insides. They sewed up my muscle but left my skin open in case of infection. If my abdomen had gotten infected my gut would have swollen and ruptured and a lot of tissue would have to been removed. With the skin open any infection could be seen before it was too late.

In the picture, the hole near the top of the wound is the bullet entrance. The smaller holes are where there were three drainage tubes to drain my bleeding kidney. On my back is the exit wound (small hole) and the bruise from my kidney. The bruise stayed there for six weeks. Those two pictures were taken about a week out of the hospital and the other, which shows the progress of my healing, was taken about three weeks after the first pictures were taken.

My wound healed completely this past thanksgiving but there is a very long and wide scar from my surgery, but at least I'm alive. The doctor said if I was a little skinny guy (I'm 6'6" and a little over 350lbs.) I would have died quickly from that gunshot.

I have taken gun safety classes and have a gun license to carry a concealed gun. Accidents do happen but when guns are involved, accidents can be deadly. I am 24 years old and a senior at a major university. I had to attend class this semester (against my doctors orders) with a huge bandage on my stomach making sure no one bumped into me and sitting side ways in my desks. My friends and family have been very supportive and without them I wouldn't have made it.

I would like to thank the doctors at Herman hospital who saved my life and I would especially like to thank my mother who took a lot of time off from work to nurse me back to health, I really love her and am grateful for all she has done for me.

I found out the first sound I heard after being shot was the sound of the bullet hitting the wall and falling to the floor. The cops took my guns, but I have gotten them back. I don't carry them any more and don't even like to look at them, and to this day I can't stand the thought of eating pizza.

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Editor's Notes:

ED: Well here it is, the long ago promised, Luck of the Irish Vol.2. I know from the last name on the e-mail that this guy's not Irish, but he did survive, so there may be some Irish in the woodpile somewhere.

Anyway, as much as I've tried to find humor in these accidental shooting series' we've had, I can't. As a young person, there were few things impressed upon me as much as the necessity of gun safety. Guns were taken so seriously in our house that we were not allowed to have toy guns. Two boys in the house and no toy guns. No cap guns, no popguns and above all else, no BB guns. Anything that would desensitize us to pointing a weapon at someone, or ourselves, and pulling the trigger was not allowed. To that end, both my brother and myself received single shot .410 gauge shotguns for our 8th and 10th birthdays respectively.

Before you get all freaked out, this was a long time ago, 21 years to be exact. Before the days of school shootings and celebrity NRA Presidents.

Anyway, the question of any moment when the guns were out was..."Is your gun loaded?" For those of you scoring at home, the answer was never "No." NEVER. If the old man asked you if your gun was loaded the answer was either "Yes" (if it was) or "It appears not to be." You could have he thing broken open and be looking right down the open barrel into the sunlight and if he asked you and you said "No", your ass was grass. We always treated our guns like they had a shell in them. It was the law of the house.

But as our submitter notes, accidents do happen. We had one gun that was shot in the house not once, but twice. We almost never loaded inside, but I can think of at least two times that we did. But luckily the laws of the house were in order and the guns were not pointed at "anything you don't want to die." And barring ricochet, that rule could save a life.

So that was just me reminiscing, not meant to be preachy.

What I really like is that the submitter took time to thank his Mom. That's cool. Everyone call your Mother tomorrow and thank her for being willing to take off work if you accidentally shoot yourself. It'll feel good and maybe more importantly, you'll have it in the bag in case you ever have to say "But, you said you would."

Glad everything healed up, that's a very impressive incision. And good job going back to school.

Photos:
Cut you- left open
Back- exit wound, bruise, and leakage
Come Together- closing up, slowly