Teen Injures Self with .22 Cartridge

[Mikee Loxxer]

Teen says wound came from hitting cartridge
By the Lincoln Journal Star

A 19-year-old who went to the emergency room at BryanLGH Medical Center West with a gunshot wound to his foot said he accidentally caused his own injury.

Sgt. Don Scheinost said police went to the hospital after the teen went to the ER just after 2 p.m. The teen said he had a .22 caliber cartridge in vice grips and hit the cartridge with a hammer an hour earlier near 28th and Q streets. It went off and hit his foot, he said.

Scheinost said police weren’t sure that’s how the injury happened. The teen wasn’t cooperative about the details.

 

[psyopspec]

I don't know if "accidentally" is the right word for describing how he shot himself. Did he think that the hammer strike would rain down puppies and ice cream? Kris Kross on a crutch, some people's kids.

Edit: I misspelled Kris Kross.

 

[Nick1911]

The teen said he had a .22 caliber cartridge in vice grips and hit the cartridge with a hammer an hour earlier near 28th and Q streets. It went off and hit his foot, he said.

He's lucky it hit his foot! That probably could have killed him.

On a practial note, i though a .22 case would just blow out the brass? Perhaps there was enough case support provided by the vice-grips?

 

[bigun15]

Well...he should have joined THR.

 

[S&WIowegan]

No way it happened...

...the way he said. An unsupported cartridge won't fire a bullet into a guys foot. Bet the kid's buddy shot him accidentally/on purpose and they made up a BS story for the hospital and cops.

Trust me on this

Bob.

 

[Punkermonkey]

Maybe we should call for a ban on vice-grips....

 

[EddieCoyle]

An unsupported cartridge won't fire a bullet into a guys foot. Bet the kid's buddy shot him accidentally/on purpose and they made up a BS story for the hospital and cops.

Trust me on this

I'm with S&WIowegan in calling BS on this. I tried it when I was a kid - almost exactly as descibed in the story - except instead of my foot, I "aimed" it at a stack of newspapers to see how far it would penetrate. The results? No penetration at all, just a hard to see dent in the top of the paper.

Maybe we should call for a ban on vice-grips...

It's for the children.

 

[Backfired]

I believe the story cuz I've seen kids do stupider things than that. I remember seeing a bunch of boys taping the butt of a .22 round onto the muzzle of a BB gun with electricians tape. It wasn't too accurate but it did fire the round reliably and the .22 case didn't rupture. When they decided to try a center-fire round (can't remember the the caliber) I talked them out of it.

 

[LaEscopeta]

Growing up, there was a kid who moved into our neighborhood who had a scar on the inside of his thigh. He said he had a rimfire cartridge on a flat rock and was squatting down to hit it with a hammer. After several blows it went off and something came back and hit his thigh. He assumed the round spun around while he was hitting it and the bullet hit him, but after reading on this site about tests of unconfined cartridges going off, I’m thinking the shell, or part of it, came back and hit him. It was a jagged shallow wound, and the kid said the doctor pulled the bullet (or whatever) out with forceps, while the kid was awake.

I didn’t see any of the above happen, but I think I remember it there was some confirmation. I’m not saying the kid in the in the story above was not shot by his buddy, and made up the hammer and vise grips story. But I do believe it is possible to injure yourself by making an unconfined cartridge go off right next to you.

 

[jqbagley]

Teen?

A 19 year old is usually described as a man in the papers. I guess I must be paranoid to think there's an agenda here.

 

[hjames000]

I never tried a RF round but I once (age 14) set off a shotgun primer.

I emptied the shot and powder from the round and secured the brass in a bench vise. I then used a finishing nail and a ball peen hammer to complete the process.

The sound was indistinguishable from a full round. The finishing nail hit me in the chest ( no shirt) and hung there just barely penetrating the skin.

 

[1911Tuner]

Puppies and Ice Cream

psyopspec...I'm fallin' out here...ROFL!

 

[Lou629]

I have always been told that a round going off without a chamber, etc. would more-or-less 'pop' like a 1" firecracker. I've never personally seen this ( and was never stupid enough to attempt it myself ) but the idea and the physics behind it seem to make sense. My first thoughts after reading it is that the story is probably some sort of Bravo Sierra concocted for the LEO's who showed up at the hospital to investigate a gunshot wound.

 

[Live Free Or Die]

Unless he had the bullet wedged against his bare foot, and the case held tightly with the vice grips, I'm also skeptical that he hurt himself in the manner he described.

 

[geekWithA.45]

I too am skeptical.

I'm putting it on my "instant replay" list for the afterlife.

Yeah, I got a growing list of stuff to take up with god at the end of this run...

 

[Mikee Loxxer]

If he is uncooperative as described I too would be inclined to think his story is BS. I'll bet he was party to some kind of incident and is trying to cover something up.

 

[1911Tuner]

Uncooperative

I'll call his story BS...but also possible. Not long ago, I did an experiment with a .45 Auto in which I created .020 inch of clearance per side around the bullet... ...with only a fairly worn chamber to contain the pressures. When fired with a 230-grain bullet loaded in front of a hardball-equivalent charge of powder, the slide was driven rearward far enough to barely kick the empty clear of the port. So...Possible.

 

[B36]

Anti BS spray is in order it was an .

 

[Harry Paget Flashman]

Back in ~1959 a neighbor kid was smashing .22's on the sidewalk with a hammer. Friends and I were stupidly standing around and watching. On the third or fourth .22 he got hit with a bullet or brass in his left forearm. It was a pretty nasty puncture wound and I do not know how he explained it to his folks.

 

[stevelyn]

I guess I must be paranoid to think there's an agenda here.

No you're not. I noticed that this sawdust-brained idiot who shouldn't have survived to adulthood was described as setting off the round with a pair of Vise Grips and a hammer. Yet the article states he was being treated for a gunshot wound.

Question.......Where's the gun that makes this a gunshot wound????

I agree that a significant penetrating wound requiring an ER visit couldn't occurr the way this fool described it and something else is going on.

 

[Lou629]

GEEK...

Yeah, I got a growing list of stuff to take up with god at the end of this run

.

You too?

 

[1911Tuner]

Penetrating Wound

stevelyn wrote;

>I agree that a significant penetrating wound requiring an ER visit couldn't occurr the way this fool described it<
****************************

Must beg to disagree. It could have happened just that way. Do I believe that it did in this particular case? Not really...but it could have.

Two points to consider:

1...In my experiment, where essentially only a worn chamber and a breechblock, and a casing was used to launch a .45 caliber lead bullet, the bullet penetrated deeply enough into the hard, dry ground...The notorious Red Clay of the Southeastern US...that if it had hit a foot, it would have gone clear through to the floor.

2...Keep in mind that with home-made zip guns that were often constructed with nothing more than a loose-fitting tube, .22 rimfire rounds have penetrated the human torso deeply enough to get into the vitals and cause death. The vise grips would contain the pressures well enough to provide substantial velocity to the bullet. Could easily have shot well past skin deep into his foot.

 

[DoubleTapDrew]

I'd call BS too. It's not impossible but I really doubt it. Just think...if this is his cover up story, just imagine how idiotic what really happend was!

 

[1911Tuner]

BS

LOL Doubletap...I dunno. I've done some pretty stupid things at that age.

 

[Cuerte Kid]

Odd story, but not entirely impossible. I do however think it was shot from a gun and the guy who got shot doesn't want to get the other guy in trouble.