Bad accident

[p35]

Guy I've known for a long time is in hospital tonight. He's been a jail correctional officer for some 25 years. As he was on his way to work Tuesday, he somehow shot himself in the lower abdomen and thigh with a Sig-Sauer 9mm- his service weapon. Classic "went off while holstering" injury, although he apparently wasn't wearing a holster. Took out the femoral artery, and he's in bad shape- the rumor, which I hope isn't true, is that he's brain dead.

Jail COs holster and unholster their weapons dozens of times a day as they move from inside the jail to the courtrooms or other areas they move inmates to. SIGs are certainly not known as unsafe weapons, either- Glocks have a reputation for being prone to this but they don't. This one's at the crime lab now being checked for any mechanical malfunction. Aside from my sadness over this, I'm kind of wondering if any of us are safe handling guns when someone like him can have an accident like this.

We always say "you can't be too careful", but this really brings it home. Stay safe out there.

http://www.theolympian.com/home/news/20031002/southsound/114433.shtml

 

[4v50 Gary]

Terrible accident and avoidable too.

 

[Pangea]

My condolences. It just goes to show that you can never "turn your back" on a loaded firearm. This man was probably as familiar as everyone here with his weapon as we are with ours and this still happened. If he has a family, I hope they are dealing with well.

 

[Standing Wolf]

I wonder what percentage of all hand gun shootings of this type are with semi-automatics.

 

[Cactus]

I just heard on the radio this evening that p35's friend did not make it. My condolances to p35 and his friends family.

 

[C.R.Sam]

Rest in peace.

Sam

 

[Kevinch]

Jail COs holster and unholster their weapons dozens of times a day as they move from inside the jail to the courtrooms or other areas they move inmates to.

You know, I've noticed something in motorcycle riding that reminds me of this. I've seen it in myself, & others I've taught to ride.

When you are new to riding, or at the beginning of a new riding season, caution is the mode & you are very alert to everything. All those rules & the mind-set taught in the safety classes are sharp in your attitude, every move is well thought out. It can actually be tiring.

However, as miles accumulate you tend to relax the mind a little - not that you aren't aware, but maybe not quite as "crisp". It's then that seemingly unimportant, minor errors of no consequence creep into your riding from time to time. And it's at that exact moment alarms need to go off, because if they don't you might find yourself in a world of hurt.

I'm not saying that is what happened with your friend, but it should give us pause to think. We really need to be ever aware of safe firearm handling.

I just noticed, in previewing this message, that your friend has passed. FWIW, before that I paused to pray for him, his family, & his friends, & now pray for their peace.

 

[Quartus]

That's it, Kevinch. It's the old saying, "Familiarity breeds contempt."


Sad.

 

[TheeBadOne]

R.I.P.

 

[444]

Kevinch
Along the same line.
I got kind of a wake up call about 10 years ago that I hope has stayed with me.
I worked briefly, part-time on a fixed wing medical transport airplane. The first transport I went on, we were loading the patient and I noticed that the pilot had a clipboard and was going over the whole plane checking everything out. When we landed, he did the same thing. When we returned to the aircraft and got ready to go, he did it again. I sat up front on the way back and had a conversation with the pilot. It seems that the pilot was retired from the Air Force. He said that he had flown the F4 since it's inception. He flew it through every variation until it was scrapped and he then retired. He had flown what seemed to me to be a large number of combat missions in Vietnam.
As he was telling me all this, I couldn't help but reflect back to his careful checkout of the plane. Here was a hotshot fighter pilot, a lifer in the Air Force, a combat vet and it wasn't beneath him to check out this little puddle jumper just as carefully as if he was going on a combat mission. He hadn't become complacent dispite all his experience in much higher performance equipment.
That made a big impression on me.


What a sad way to go for your friend.

 

[rayra]

As Quartus said, and similarly - 'Complacency Kills'. Had a life-long friend, carpenter, TV filming-set builder, at home one day building some furniture for his kids, stuffed his hand in his table-saw. He can count to 8-1/2, now.

Be Careful, everybody.

 

[Geezer]

OOOPS

I teach a little bit, and one of the courses includes safety on construction jobsites.

We have a concept we call the accident chain. In other words, there usually is a whole series of linked events that result in an accident. Cut the chain anywhere along that line and the accident cannot occur. The idea is to cut the chain as early as possible in the chain, the safety engineer's equivalent of "Don't go down that satreet anymore."

The kicker in this is that as I understand the experiments, first done some forty years ago, the human brain goes to sleep momentarily about every 90 seconds. During that minute fraction of time, the recording system is turned off.

If you have ever looked both ways at a stop sign, safely pulled into the intersection only to discover there was a car you have no memory of seeing bearing down on you, then you understand. Your eyes might have seen it all right, but the brain was out to lunch and the recorder was turned off. This little effect, besides being the final link in many an accident chain, also means you have no memory of the last mistake. If the recorder is turned off, as far as your brain is concerned, it didn't occur. that seems to be the explanation for inexplicable acts, such as reaching with ones fingers to pull a chip away from a saw blade. (I still have the scar.)

It is also the justification for redundant safety measures, such as the four rules for gun handling. Most of you don't remember Pogo, but I am sure you have heard his most famnous line. "We have met the enemy, and it is us."

God bless and be careful out there.

 

[Jim March]

No holster+DA *anything* is a bad idea. It only makes sense at all with a gun in "condition 3", empty chamber, full mag. And THEN it's not safe because of possible brainfarts while putting it in that state...if you rack it to check the chamber and not realize you've got a loaded mag in, you've just loaded the gun.

And THEN he did some form of cross-draw or navel-level carry. Most of these "re-holster accidents" send a round skimming down the outside of the leg. The resulting wounds are seldom very serious.

Dang. Bad situation.

Hint to anybody that has a femoral hit and is alone: the way to survive is to take some sort of stick and "sit on it" in such a way that it pushes across the base of the femoral from above. You have to know how to shut off somebody else's femoral by hand, in a first aid class. If you DO understand that, a police baton, ASP baton, tire iron, crowbar or anything remotely similar is necessary.

Let's say your left-leg femoral is hit. Put the tip of the baton on a seat such as a car seat under the leg that's NOT hit, sit with the baton coming up through your legs close to your genitalia and pointing diagonally left, then once your weight is fully down on the seat, push down on the upper end of the baton in a down-and-left direction. It will cross over the base of the left femoral. Feeling faint? Fold yourself over and put the upper end of the baton/whatever under your left armpit, and fold forward...even if you pass out, you'll still be shutting off that artery.

Your leg can go a couple of hours on limited blood flow without "dying"...only the brain has that extreme five-to-six-minute limit. Even losing the leg is...well, bad, but not end-of-game. So if you know help is coming, this sort of trick can help a LOT.

A Tourniquet is the other option but that's more difficult to do properly solo and maintain even after passing out than the baton trick. A belt makes a sub-optimal shutoff if you're solo - rope and a stick of 8" or better twisting to get pressure can work, again, by folding over it to keep pressure up even if you pass out.

 

[Geezer]

BLOOD

Jim thanks, good stuff to know. I am on a rat poison prescription, and i still play with knives, chain saws and skill saws, as well as all sorts of other sharp edged and/or pointed stuff.

I also found "Quick Clot" accidentally while Googling. Pretty expensive, but worth it to me, for obvious reasons. I got a couple from Shomer's, one stays with me all the time, the other is on our most used bathroom.

God bless and be careful out there.

 

[dinosaur]

So sorry about your friend. I was a C.O. for a few years in NYC. Before I joined there was no standard on off duty carry. After a fatal N.D. they ordered revolvers only to be carried. I don`t recall any N.D.s while I was working but it was over 20 years ago.

When I was on the NYPD I remember a cop shooting himself with a BHP the same way as your friend. Luckily he survived. Semis, especially single action were not authorized although many of us had them as BUGs.

The problem as I see it with semi autos and LEOs is most aren`t really gun persons. Even if they get good training it has to be reinforced frequently. Nobody`s perfect and one of the good things about boards like this even if you can`t/don`t shoot much, you have to pick up something that might keep you out of trouble.

 

[TarpleyG]

Geezer, do you know if there is a term for this "brain sleep" occurence? I am interested in reading a little more after reading your post.

GT

 

[fourdeuce82d]

Condolences to the family. I had a similar accident two years ago carrying a baby glock (9mm- 26?) IWB front carry. I was very luck- bullet went in my right lower abdomen/groin area, down and out through the back of my leg. missed bone/artery/nerves.

Scared the hell out of me. I now carry behind strong side hip.

very sad story- and "there but for the grace of God..."

 

[ceetee]

Pray for his family.

There have been a coupla incidents here in South Florida of cops having AD's while holstering. It gives me the willies because my wife is a local C.O. who only wears her revolver when escorting an inmate outside the confines... and she's definitely not a "gun person" She only owns a gun because of her job (actually, it's my old 686 that I had to loan to her to qualify with).

I'v seen an AD up close, though... My oldest brother is an avid skeet and trap shooter. He used to use Dad's old Browing A-5. One night, (I was about 8 at the time) after a shoot, he was home, cleaning the shotgun, and just before he cased it, he ran a shell through the action three or four times to make sure it would cycle and eject properly. Then, since he didn't want to put the gun away cocked, he pulled the trigger.


BOOM!

Luckily, the shot passed between me and my other brother (who were standing about 6 feet apart at the time) and the only casualty was Mom's upright piano. Thereafter, she couldn't play anything that had a G or G-sharp in it...

 

[El Tejon]

p35, best to his family and his friends.

This is why we have holsters and the Four Rules. Use a holster, internalize the Four Rules.