Made a mistake (Graphic)

[Cattywompuss]

I don't mean what I am about to say as an insult or to demean anyone, or to "question anyone's manhood."

Please look at that o.p. picture again.
Especially if it upsets you or "grosses you out."
The time to find such sights upsetting or for them to make you want to vomit is not when a tragedy occurs and the life, you, may need to save is that of your significant other, child, parent, or best friend. It may not be at the range. Car accidents are ridiculously too common and way too many people are permanently injured or killed in them. Accidents with tools at home or at work. The list is vast if places and manners in which series trauma can occur.
Get inoculated to such sights now. Look at that pic. Seek out others....
More importantly,,,,, seek out basic level trauma care training.
I am not talking about taking an EMT class.
The 1st class that comes to mind is, "Stop The Bleed," excellent relatively short class, keeps up with the latest trauma care trends coming out of Iraq and Afghanistan in the last 20 years,,, boiled down for the average citizen.
Check out a group called, "Field Craft Survival," they are not just firearms and weapons craft training, in fact that is a small percentage of their value. They have many classes that involve trauma care.
East coast folks. Not sure if they still offer it, but look it up, Sig Acadamy used to offer a "First Aid for Range Safety Officers," class that was pretty good.

Remember, we call police, fire, and ems "first responders," they are not. They are second.
When you and your family are in a car accident, kitchen or workshop accident, when your there when an incident involving injury occurs on the range,,,, you are there,,,,
you are the first responder.

Being former military LEO I had a lot of training for all sorts of wounds. The rubber really met the road in 2007 or so when in my civilian job, a 78 year old fellow I worked with didn't set the brake on the tractor. All he did was bushhog, and so he got off to relieve himself without setting the brake. 15 foot batwing rolled back on him and took off half his foot. The poor ol fella got back on the tractor and drove it a quarter mile to the shop where I was airing up a trailer tire to head to town.

He parked up and for a moment I didn't think anything of it because he would often park up and chat. Then I saw his bare leg where his jeans had been nearly torn off. And his foot. All I had to hand was my overshirt which I promptly wrapped about it and applied pressure. His poor circulation probably saved his life.

We got EMT there and he was life-flighted to Grady in ATL about 30 miles away. But before the chopper could take off I had to go back to the field and find his wallet and I found the boot that previously covered his foot. Poor fella only had a driver's license in his wallet. Literally nothing else. Next time I saw him he had a new foot, and a driving aid so he could gas the truck with his left foot.

My supervisor's supervisor asked my supervisor if they should get me a new shirt. I reckoned Sammy's life was worth any shirt I owned so I declined. Learn some basic life-saving skills. Any random day could be like the OP described.

 

[Treestalker]

Very sorry to hear of your accident. I knew a young man that purchased a stainless steel Remington some years ago. A number of us offered to show him how and what to load. He insisted he knew all about black power firearms. Well, the short of it, he loaded smokeless, barrel just missed his head, cylinder split in 3 pieces, top brace never found. Then he tried returning it to the gun shop and said it was defective. Very lucky young man.

You mean he SURVIVED taking the gun back to the shop?...

 

[Cattywompuss]

You mean he SURVIVED taking the gun back to the shop?...

A few months ago a customer claimed their gun was defective because bullets didn't fit in the magazine. So I had them bring in the gun, and I loaded the magazine. They were unaware you had to press down and back at the same time. I have no idea how they survived adolescence.

 

[Rum River]

Was working at Cabela's and made small talk with a customer carrying a pound of whatever smokeless as he was heading to the checkout. "Yup", he said - "Gonna sight in my new muzzle loader today." Whoa, whoa, whoa there sir. He was absolutely astounded that black vs smokeless mattered.

Sighting in muzzle loaders with two others. One of them had just loaded a heavy conical with a heavy charge of 2f Goex - when he realized he had mistakenly used from a bottle of Triple 7 3f instead. I said I had the stuff with to pull the charge. Without saying another word he leveled the rifle from his hip, pointed it down range and fired to clear with all of us standing within ten feet of one another.

He then looked at us and said: "Why?"

The ensuing conversation was quite a bit hotter than his muzzle flash.....

 

[tom_in_vt]

Very scary stuff! I’m glad you made it. Hopefully you have recovered as much as possible and aren’t in any pain. Mistakes are easily made, a reminder to us all to be as diligent as possible.

 

[steam1993]

As a emr(emergency medical responder) I agree with the comments about STOP THE BLEED. You could also take a basic first aid course(8 hours),I am also on the first aid team at a lot of the rendezvous me and my wife do.
Have had to respond to calls but so far nothing like in the post, all have been minor so far. I January I start a EMT class, hope every one stays safe as that is not the way to meet.
The person was lucky that there was a hand surgeon in the ER, as was said a lesson learned, the hard way.

 

[MAPMFF]

Holy moly.

That's quite the hand injury. Certainly glad you made it through that ordeal.

As a paramedic/firefighter working in a very urban area I have seen more GSW and stabs, among other trauma than I care to remember, but the OP injury is as bad as they get for extremity injuries, short of it being amputated. Happy to see the comments about the stop the bleed training and medical kits, at a very minimum get a CAT TQ, and practice with it, put it on with one hand, the non dominant hand etc. They can save your ass if you're far away from help. Stay safe out there.

 

[Brokennock]

Oh, by the way, a few of us forgot to mention in all out recommendations to have and practice using a tourniquet,,,,,


they are not recommended for head wounds.......

 

[tenngun]

Pat, I'm glad you're still alive and I hope you didn't give up Muzzleloading shooting. Sometimes accidents happen in our hobby, like in many other hobbies. Thank you for being willing to share your experience in a graphic manner, and everybody needs to take a good look at that and let it sink in. Of course they cannot feel the pain, nor relate to the healing and relearning to use your hand, jaw, etc. that last a lifetime. Having been involved with Artillery reenacting in years past, I had some close calls. One involved an 18 pdr with a rough bore. I was #1 man and was ramming a 1 1/2 lb powder charge home when the bag broke open. The ramrod stopped about 1 foot short of the breech. I felt the hair stand up on my neck. The summoned safety officer ordered the charge dumped on the ground in front of the gun and wetted with canteens of water. Upon firing the next round, the powder on the ground ignited, and I was in a ball of flame about 12 feet in diameter. My 16 year old daughter, working on a cannon 3 guns away, saw me silhouetted against the flame and thought I was fried. The heat was intense, but I was not burned, being a few feet away in reality. Our Captain had lost most of his right hand in a premature discharge on a 12pdr Napoleon years before. He was right handed and had to learn to do everything left handed. He freely exhibited his hand to new gunners as a caution to not hurry, and be careful and aware. I retired from Artillery after about 4 years, thankfully still intact. Cpl. George Briggs, 1st Arkansas Light Artillery, Confederate.

This story, and the op are great examples of how even with careful experienced shooters things can go wrong.
I’m LUCKY I’ve never had a bad accident with guns, seen some close calls, even with experienced shooters.
I don’t leave the driveway until I’ve heard the click even though I’ve never been in a bad car accident
Use safety precautions and be mindful … it CAN happen to ANYBODY

 

[Crow-Feather]

I keep all my black powder in a metal ammo can and pull it out only when loading my powder horns. Not because I feared this happening, but I guess that I can add this to my reasons. I am so sorry for your bad luck. But if you think about it, you have probably saved 10 other accidents like this because you were brave enough to come forward with your story. For those 10 others, I wish to thank you for your courage.

 

[Irishmusket]

I am hope you recover from you injury

 

[Irishmusket]

I have seen seen three blown up muzzle loaders in my many years of gun smithing one a the latest was a savage model 10 which is supposedly designed to shoot smokeless powder took the poor guy hand off catastrophic injury the use of one eye as well he is ruined looking at legal action on the maker .his lawyer has the wrecked rifle .I refuse to service these rifles now and definitely tell customers not to shoot them.I have seen a customers BrownBess with split breech and barrel 14 inches I was amazed to see it he was unhurt only some powder burns His problem was he was loading loads far exceeding the safety limits of the musket he had routinely used loads of120 to 150 grains of 3f and some times4f with a 735 round ball and patch as tight as he could push down barrel he did it enough to ruin his Pedersoli .I was able to buy it for parts . Standard factory Load for that musket is 75 gains of 2f black powder with ball I shoot mine with no more than 82 grains 3 drams 1f or 2f 1&1/8 of of 4 or 6 shot best musket I ever owned Pedersoli makes a good musket .The point I am making is you blow up your musket or rifle using the wrong load or wrong grade of black powder Safety First boys and girls black power can and will blow up your muzzle loader !

 

[Master Blaster]

For your candor: Respect.

For your loss of the Darwin Award: Congratulations.

I would like to shake your hand and buy you a libation. You are a tough S.O.B.

 

[hanshi]

We can all still appreciate that enjoying muzzleloaders is exponentially safer than lawnmowers, farm equipment and even golf. The number of deaths and injuries on the golf course totally surprises most people. As an LEO I was a first responder to a few deaths and injuries. I had to transport one golfer to the hospital quickly who had a broken (he did it in anger) golf club jam deeply into his nasal cavity.

 

[N.Y. Yankee]

Thank you for posting this, you paid a high price for not paying attention. This was good of you to post with the picture because it really hammers home the point. I'm very sorry for your terrible injuries.

I would also say that I too, just dont understand how this could happen coming from my perspective. I just cant afford a mistake like this so I have conditioned myself to check and double check things before I do them. People say I'm slow, but so far, I still have all my fingers, toes, eyes and ears.

Yes, I know mistakes do happen, often. It's human nature. I work in a tractor dealership. We get folks who come in and have put hydraulic oil in their engine or vise-versa. They have put raw gasoline in their 2-cycle equipment or gasoline in their diesel engine. Simple mistakes can be expensive and we dont mind charging well for fixing their mistakes. Hopefully, they learn from them.

It only takes a second to read a label, that's why they are on the packages. People just have to do it. It will save them a ton of grief.

I wish you well sir.

 

[TFoley]

A few months ago a customer claimed their gun was defective because bullets didn't fit in the magazine. So I had them bring in the gun, and I loaded the magazine. They were unaware you had to press down and back at the same time. I have no idea how they survived adolescence.

I assume that he needed tutoring on the use of a spoon?

 

[TFoley]

Very sorry to hear of your accident. I knew a young man that purchased a stainless steel Remington some years ago. A number of us offered to show him how and what to load. He insisted he knew all about black power firearms. Well, the short of it, he loaded smokeless, barrel just missed his head, cylinder split in 3 pieces, top brace never found. Then he tried returning it to the gun shop and said it was defective. Very lucky young man.

Like this?

 

[Kmcmichael]

Thanks for sharing the details. We should all realize this COULD happen to us.
The idea that ”it would never happen with me” might be true but that thought of superiority equals complacency.

This hobby is still safer than climbing ladders.

 

[Marshhawk]

Friend of mine bought a blackpowder revolver from someone ("it was a deal"). I came with everything but powder. Proceeded to a nearby big box sporting goods store and bought some powder. When he called to talk about his new gun I asked him what brand of black powder he got. "Black powder?" Yikes, he got smokeless that said "pistol powder" on it. NOT THE SAME I told him. I still get the horrors when I think about it.

 

[Marshhawk]

So so sorry for what happened to you. Thanks for sharing. Glad the Paramedics got there in time.

I'll use this to say that everyone should have some CAT tourniquets on hand. I have one in my truck, one in the boat, one in the bush plane, one that goes in my cargo pocket so it's on my person, one in my bug out bag, one in my lap top back pack for when I'm traveling. I always grab one and take it to the shooting bench- just in case. And they are all set up for one-handed operation so I can put them on myself.

I just ordered four of them. Thanks.