Happy New Year, I'm alive! Interesting last few weeks.

[Rustpot]

What an absolute pile of **** the last few weeks have been. Working over time, lost my phone, ice storm, power outages, dodging falling trees, winter travel, Christmas by candlelight, bullet wounds, more travel, snow storms, and to top it off, an exploding semi truck.

At least they've finally got cable restored for my area, so I have TV and internet finally. And my new (used) phone can finally cloud restore now that my iTunes can connect to the servers again.

It's been a little while since I've been online. So much has happened. So little time to explain, I'm leaving for Hawaii in 3 days for 7, so I'll likely be on hiatus during most of that time again.

 

[Oakley Stephen]

Bullet wounds? Please elaborate..........

 

[atrain]

WOW man glad your ok

 

[Ecko]

Yikes. Sounds like I am reading a pitch for a Bruce Willis film.

 

[Rustpot]

Bullet wounds? Please elaborate..........

I was at my parents' house for the week of Christmas. Lots of family in the area, and my cousin's husband's step-father is a Vietnam 101st Airborne vet, and he likes to go shooting. So the week before he texted me and said to bring some guns, we'll have a range trip while I'm in town.

He's a member at a private range, nice outdoor facility. It was somewhere around 15 degrees F (-10 C), and none of the ice from the previous weekend's storm had melted. So the lock on the gate is frozen shut. We decide to leave the car at the gate, there are no tracks to speak of, and hoof it in. Ankle high snow with an icy layer, about 3-400 yards to get to the firing line. No problem. Nice day, not a lot of wind, sun popping in and out. I had my Titanium/Tungsten polar Crosshairs on. We shoot for a while, sight in my rifle, shoot some pistols, back to rifle.

He was getting frustrated as his rifle wasn't working right. Might have been the cold, might have been that it was new, or lube, or whatever. We decide to shoot more pistol, and I bring my rifle along for shooting at about 7-10 yards. I shoot a round and he screams "cease fire" so I unload and clear my rifle and see what's up. Apparently my round hit a rock or something and the spall ricocheted back and hit him. He's got two holes in his pants on his right thigh. I ask him if he's hurt, and he says "I don't know, my legs have been numb for the last half hour".

So I take a glove off, stick my finger in his pants, and it comes out bloody. GREAT. It wasn't like I covered my hand in blood, but he freaks out a bit and says we need to pack up and go so he can get it checked out, we're not going to try and field dress it there. Alright, we hastily pack up, and he's moving slow. I think we were out in the cold too long, he's in his late 60's at least and he's moving slow, but he's getting more anxious to get moving.

We get packed up and start back to the gate, and he falls over. His legs are numb, he's old, we're walking on a lot of ice. At this point I don't know if he's stiff or going into shock or some crazy PTSD is creeping back up on him. So I load up with his stuff so he can make it back to the car. We didn't shoot a whole lot, so the bags aren't much lighter than going in.

We make it to the gate, I help him over, toss over the bags, hop over, and load up the car. He insists I need to drive, he can't feel his feet. He's starting to go on about frostbite or some nonsense, and he's switching between laying his head back on the seat and trying to apply pressure to the wounds and move as much as he can to get the blood flowing.

I get him back to the house - I insisted since it was on the way to the hospital, which is where he wanted to go. We get him inside and he takes off his boots, then his pants. He's got two little scratches, the one I checked bled enough to wet my finger but it looks like it froze shut before it bled anymore.

So he's calming down now. We're fine. His legs warm up and get the color back, and the two cuts bleed a little more and we checked for any foreign matter. Found a couple bits of copper jacket in his boot.

Now he's just embarrassed about the whole thing. And I have something to hold over him for the next few times we meet.

 

[Rustpot]

Lesson: If you're going out in freezing weather, wear the appropriate attire. And a bullet proof vest.

 

[Lexkempo]

Dude glad you and yours are ok!

All the best for 2014!

 

[headpatrolman]

Wow that's scary. Rifle rounds off of rocks not good. The qual range for my dept. is a sand berm so no ricochets. We do not shoot any metal targets at less than 50 yards and then still we are behind barricades.

 

[Rustpot]

Wow that's scary. Rifle rounds off of rocks not good. The qual range for my dept. is a sand berm so no ricochets. We do not shoot any metal targets at less than 50 yards and then still we are behind barricades.

It can happen with anything. The berms at this place are natural, and as they're shot they can erode and stuff like rocks can peek through.

I've taken fragments at indoor ranges with slanted steel backstops, shooting steel with pistols at 15 yards... heck, I've heard stuff fly back and pepper the firing line when shooting steel at 50. It's real interesting. And mostly scary.

I suppose lesson 2 should be to ALWAYS keep your eye protection on when shooting. If I'm using a spotting scope I cover my other eye with my hand to keep it protected.

 

[the piper]

Wow congrats on making it through! Last couple years we had 2 5 day outages and a water main break but wow man bullet wounds..ouch. Hope Hawaii is a step towards better days.