Injuries... how have they changed your life with firearms?

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A light stroke a couple months ago has left me with double vision. It screwed up the muscles that move my right eye. I've taped over the right lens of my glasses as a temporary measure. I can shoot handguns ok crosseyed but long guns are impossible. Also left handed is out of the question because I have no left wrist. It's been immobilized with a steel plate. Guess my long guns are on vacation.
 
Sorry to hear that. Hopefully it will get better with time. Best wishes for a speedy recovery.
 
Dead scaphoid bole in my wrist. Can't handle anything with more pop than a 9MM any more.
But 9's are working just fine, I have gotten rid of a lot of stuff I wasn't using anyhow, and with that money I have been collecting some very nice 9's. (Sig 226, Springfield EMP and Sig P938 are my favorites thus far, Kimber Solo was my most abysmal failure)
 
We are the broken gang! Well I would be remiss if I didn't add my injuries to the fray! Handgrenade to right dorsal aspect, broken one of every bone in motorcycle accidents (hit twice by cars), chainsaw to right thumb, machette to left forearm, .22 to right shoulder, and the grand daddy of all a ricochette to C3-C4. That one still gives me a pain in the neck!
 
Blew out my wrist fighting off a very mad mentally retarded fella. Got a couple knuckles blown too. Not much to be done and I've still got use of the hand just nothing extreme. A couple years back shooting my 9mm and j-frames got too painful. Pisses me off, sure, but life's tough; wear a helmet and carry a spare.

Besides I'm still shooting rimfires.;)
 
I like all the response to the thread.... we will plug along improvise and endure!

Pockets.... +10 on positive attitude, that is what sets you apart!

DelMAr .... Thanks For Your Service! Where there is a will there is a way!

fallout .... keep on keeping on!

MachIVShooter....
All I can say, guys, is, keep moving! Literally, recognize the fine line between exercising the injured parts and re-injuring them, and keep your activities as close to that as possible.

Well Put! The stubbornness of man and not listening to the Dr. usually causes us more trouble.... that was me until past Monday... now in a sling for ten days or risk loss of strength that can possibly not be repaired!

Doc2m ... I will assume you also deserve Thanks For Your Service! HG Injuries are not to common otherwise! Thanks!

DNS .... Yes Rimfires are our friends! which added insult to injury because I had just purchased me a new Sig Sauer 1911-22 the week before my injury... but I have been able to shoot it a little left handed.
 
lost three fingers on my left hand when I was 18 [now 65] has never stopped me from shooting anything but a bow...still work [2] full time jobs ..hang in there you ain't broke yet...
 
And some politicians who never worked a day in their life, think that we would give them our guns.
 
We are the broken gang! Well I would be remiss if I didn't add my injuries to the fray! Handgrenade to right dorsal aspect, broken one of every bone in motorcycle accidents (hit twice by cars), chainsaw to right thumb, machette to left forearm, .22 to right shoulder, and the grand daddy of all a ricochette to C3-C4. That one still gives me a pain in the neck!

If I had your luck, I'd be walking around in custom medieval-style full titanium armor. Sounds like you'd be pretty easy to locate in any given city if one just hangs around the E.R. long enough!
 
I got a hernia packing a deer out, went to the Dr. who argued that it wasn't a hernia, but rather a tumor on a an inguinal nerve.

That sounds like some of the doctors I've encountered. Went into the ER one night sick as a dog with stomach pains. My doctor came in and I heard them announce her welcome to the staff while she was in my room. OK, brand new doc - here I go. Eventually she told me I was "constipated". The next morning I couldn't take a leak. I had a kidney stone that completely blocked my ureter and since I only have one kidney that was pretty serious. I could have died pretty quick if I hadn't got a better doc when I went back telling them I couldn't go. It was pretty obvious by then though. It took them an hour or so to fix me up and I'm as good as new until my next stone. I bet the doc got paid for seeing me too. :rolleyes:
 
Riding my motorcyle t-boned by semi.Lost right leg & smashed right arm.Im right hand normally.So i had to learn to shoot off hand.So a lesson to all shooters.Practice off hand a 1/3 of the time.Im glad i did,if i hadnt id be lost now.And u just never know,be prepared too over come
 
A guy I know accidentally shot his own arm completely off, id say that changed his life.
 
Cornea transplant, due to a terrible eye infection, luckily in my non shooting eye, but it still bothers me, makes me light sensitive.

I have to use special eye drops to help fight rejection and they speed up the formation of cataracts.

I'm just lucky I still have my vision I use veridian green lasers on my pistols, help a bunch I shoot a LOT and my shooting is almost instinctual now so I get by.
 
Fell, two years ago while trying to drag a buck I had shot. He was supposed to go straight down, double lung hit with a .308. Ya right> Instead he ran about fifty yards and expired and fell down a super steep drainage coming off the mountain I was on. I was by myself, but I have done this drill many times before, no problem. Well, it started raining hard. My plan was to tie the buck off and inch him back across the rim of this near cliff. I was telling myself go slow and be careful. As I was pulling this buck to my next tie off tree, the spot where I was standing, which felt stable I might add, gave way and I did a jujitsu hit on my shoulder. This blew out my rotator cuff. This also disabled my strong hand to let go of the rope I had. The deer went down the cliff and I went with him about 75 to 100 feet. Stopping against a big rock in the drainage, which was now engulfed in raging water. Somehow I didn't get impaled with antlers and didn't drown in the torrent. Couldn't move anything for hours, but finally got some feeling back in my legs and was able to get to my feet. This happened at 9 AM and I made it to the emergency room at midnight. The good lord was watching over me that day. The arm is workable now. No more archery though, and I have difficulty holding any rifle offhand now. but I am alive.
 
You learn to cope, compramise with your situtation. Bi lateral hip replacement at 28. No more snow skiing, wheres the snowmobile. Lower back surgery 4 disks blown, can't get in that tree anymore, where my ground blind. Moved from a pump 12 to a 20 auto, don't walk those long fields for pheasant anymore, setting by a pond waiting for doves.
At least the safe didn't crush the OP to death.
 
A guy I know accidentally shot his own arm completely off, id say that changed his life.

I know a guy who did the same thing. He spent the rest of his life (at least the part of it I knew him) trying to prove he could still do whatever he could do before his hunting accident. Never lay a shotgun down where I can fall and never leave a round in the chamber on a shotgun.
 
Wow, I got off easy.
Departing my burning house by the upstairs window and sliding off the icy porch roof, 1/30/10;
I fractured my pelvis, tore my pubic symphysis, cracked two vertebrae, broke off a transverse spinal process, and nipped a sciatic nerve. A long screw in through the hip and a chain across my belly holds me together pretty well.
The dropped foot that remains from that pinched nerve slowed me down a bit on the IDPA field but I am not much otherwise impaired. Picking up brass is the most painful part of pistol shooting.
General arthritis is enough that 9mm and .45 midrange are about as much fun as I like to shoot.

I complained of foot pain - the morphine pump took care of the rest for long enough to heal - and they gave me Lyrica which did little but tear up my already irritable digestion.
 
Neurontin is terrific in a very narrow set of circumstances. My daughter had what we call some ''orthopedic adventures'' when she was young due to a congenital fibural hemimelia, and had a nerve in her ankle start spasming. Neurontin calmed it down long enough to heal, and that particular cause of pain went away.

sent using CPIP (see RFC 1149)
 
One of my all time favorite movie lines is from Heartbreak Ridge, "Improvise, adapt and overcome". I think those posting in this thread exemplify this attitude, and I admire the grit and determination it takes to persevere over some devestating illness and injury. Some true inpiration in the stories posted.

My personal inspiration is my 84 year old mom who has severe artheritis. She's not a shooter and never has been, but the ingenuity and grit she shows every day just by adapting to and overcoming the limitations her physical issues cause is incredible. Still driving at 84 she had to come up with a very specific proceedure just to get in the car. We're working on one now for her to get in my new vehicle. The running boards I thought would be enough aren't. Still she fights an increasingly uphill battle daily to maintain her independance and I admire her greatly for it.

Even little victories are still victories, and while we are all ultimately destined to lose our battles eventually, the fight waged is a telling mark of ones charactor.
 
Couldn't wait to get rid of the cataracts on both eyes, was nearsighted with astigmatism from birth, the new lenses corrected the astigmatism and brought the color back into my life.

3 weeks after the surgery noticed my dominant (right) eye had some distortion, a blood vessel that feeds the retina burst and that caused permanent distorted vision and about 40% loss in that eye, the vision in that eye looks like the old funny mirrors that used to be found at the carnivals the ones that made you look short and fat or tall and skinny

Handguns I can shoot cross dominant not a problem, but iron rifle sights especially if they are mounted on or ahead of the chamber are not possible, tang types are possible if I shoot both eyes open.

It's strange how the brain compensates for that type of injury, both eyes open no distortion just over all degradation, good eye shut real wavy like heavy mirage on a hot day.

Will have to teach myself to shoot lefty.
 
Was it caused by the surgery, or just a coincidence? I hope it improves whatever the cause.
 
I've got more chronic bugaboos than specific injuries: a weak knee, achilles issues, the early stages of arthritis in my thumbs, and weakening near vision.

Most of that I can manage. It's the vision that makes things hard.
 
A horse fell on me at laurel park in Laurel, MD near Baltimore. The fall broke two vertebra in my neck and two vertebra in my lower back. Thanks to the doctors at the VA in Baltimore and Quantico, VA I recovered. I am still not myself but I can walk well. Most people don't know I was injured by just looking at me. The other veterans at the VA made my rehab easy. At the VA there were men who suffered horrible injuries in Iraq and they were making a normal life for themselves. I couldn't be the one that fell out.

My life as a shooter has changed. I used almost exclusively participate in shotgun sports. Now 50 rounds a month is all I can handle with a shotgun. I used to see a pistol as something to buy time to get a real gun. Now IDPA and ZSA are becoming my favorite sports.
 
I'm 52. In 2007 tore my left rotator cuff bad. Had surgery/PT and was out of work close to a year. Never got the full strength back. Pain and weakness make offhand shooting and pump action guns hard. 12/29/2010 I slipped in snow unloading company equipment from my van and jammed my right shoulder ball right through that rotator cuff. I shreded it and screwed up the nerves. Had surgery/PT and was out of work just over a year but had constant pain and sever weakness. Found out the cuff retore and also the bicept tendon. That were I,m at now.Hard to get anything over head, cast a fishing pole, can't throw anything, no bowling or frisbee., ect... Working to keep my job but I can't lift or hold anything above my chest. Can't take much recoil from my milsurp collection. Mostly shoot .22s but even cycling a bolt action is tough from the shoulder. I need anothe surgery but I can't take another year off from work. So i live with the constant pain/weakness. On top of this I've been on the road for 31 years and the last couple years have been getting all the neck/shoulder and back pain from driving for that long. I feel like crap all the time. Have multipe RX for Hydrocodone, pain patches and topicals. I can't drive taking the pills and I don't like the way they make me feel after a couple days. Home remidies(beer/wine) isn't the answere also but works to make me slee to start all over the next day. When I plan to go shooting I don't use anything for 2 days before. So I go into shooting to enjoy myself hurting and wait untill after dinner to take anything. Lifes good, i,m alive.
 
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