Woman survives .44 Mag between the eyes.

Status
Not open for further replies.
1. They don't know for sure that it was a .44
2. The front of the skull is incredibly thick and hard. They don't call it the cranial vault for nothing
 
But it hit the windshield first

http://www2.tbo.com/content/2008/ap...se-woman-who-survived-shot-bet/?news-breaking

Boyfriend Calls 911, Says: 'She's Shot In The Head!'
By MIKE WELLS | The Tampa Tribune
Published: April 18, 2008

TAMPA - The moments after a Riverview woman was shot between the eyes – and lived – were filled with panic, as a recording of a 911 call shows.

The shooting happened shortly before midnight Saturday at Causeway Boulevard and 50th Street. The Hillsborough County Sheriff's Office released the tape this morning.

In the recording, the woman's boyfriend describes for a dispatcher the horrific moment of the gunman firing:

"He got out of the sunroof and shot the gun at the vehicle and hit my girl in the head," the man said. "She's shot in the head! This ain't never happened – never before. It's like some kind of bizarre incident."

The sheriff's office has described the shooting as road-rage related and is asking for the public's help identifying the shooter.

The woman was riding in her boyfriend's Ford F-150 pickup and headed south on 50th Street when two vehicles – a white 1990s model Nissan Sentra and a gray Nissan Altima – approached, darting in and out of traffic.

As the vehicles neared Causeway, the driver of the Sentra emerged through the car's sunroof while a passenger steered and fired three times, the sheriff's office said.

A bullet struck the pickup's windshield and hit the woman in the forehead. The bullet exited the side of her head, went through the truck's rear window and hit a Jeep that was behind the Ford. No one else was injured.

The victim, a 41-year-old retail manager, spoke to the Tribune this week on the condition that she not be identified because the gunman has not been caught and she fears for her life and loved ones.

The woman was in the front passenger seat of the truck. Her 22-year-old daughter was in the back seat of the extended-cab vehicle.

The three of them had been to a drive-in movie and stopped to get sandwiches from Salem's sub shop at 2015 N. 50th St. near Seventh Avenue, she said.

After they pulled out of the parking lot, the Sentra and the Altima pulled alongside the truck, she said. When they got to a red light and stopped, the people in the cars were yelling. Two people were in the Sentra and four were in the Altima, she said.

Her boyfriend rolled down his window and asked them what the racket was about, she said. At first she thought he might know them, but he did not.

The people in the cars yelled profanities and made obscene hand gestures. A man got out of the white Sentra, walked over to the pickup and started mouthing off to her boyfriend, the woman said. Another man got out of the second car and did the same thing.

When the light turned green, the men got back in their cars and all of the vehicles continued south, she said. The cars stayed at their sides, boxing them in on the three-lane road.

"I told my boyfriend to let them hit the truck, but don't pull off the side of the road," she said. "They're up to no good."

She looked out her window. A man driving Sentra looked at her and yelled, "'I'm going to ... kill you," she said.

The woman said she picked up her cell phone to indicate she was going to call 911 and hoped that would make them go away.

When they got to the traffic light at Causeway Boulevard, the light was red and they all stopped again.

The white Sentra was in front of the pickup and the gray Altima was on the driver's side, she said. A few other cars were at the intersection, too.

She watched in horror as the driver of the Sentra stood up through his car's sunroof, turn around and aimed a large handgun at the pickup, she said. She heard a loud bang and the shattering of glass.

The two cars then sped away, and she thought the ordeal was over, the woman said.

She realized it wasn't when she felt blood running down the back of her neck and a hot stinging around two holes behind her left ear, she said.

She told her boyfriend she'd been shot and to take her to Brandon Regional Hospital.

He turned to cross the median in the road, hit a barricade and drove on Causeway toward U.S. 301. Her daughter phoned 911. Her boyfriend talked to the dispatcher, and they stopped at a Circle K and waited for deputies and an ambulance.

While they waited, she grew woozy and afraid, she said.

"In those moments I thought, 'I'm never going to seem them again,' " she said of her family. "I'm never going to get to tell them I love them again."

"I told my daughter, 'I love you,' " she said. "I told her to tell everyone else that I love them, too," the woman said.

Her daughter screamed, "Momma, don't leave me!" the woman said.

"I really thought I'd lost my life," she said.

The ambulance took her to Tampa General Hospital, and the staff couldn't believe she was alive, she said.

"The doctor just stood there staring at me," she said. "He said, 'I want to apologize to you for staring, it's just that we've never had someone come into our ER with such a large-caliber gunshot wound to the head and not be dead. You're a lucky woman.'"

Judging by the size of the holes, doctors told her the weapon could be a 44.-caliber gun, she said. It hit her between the eyes, broke in two pieces and traveled under her skin to exit behind her ear in two places.

The woman was released from Tampa General about 5:30 a.m. the next day. She had stitches but no broken bones or life-threatening conditions, she said. Her hearing and her eyesight were not affected.

Part of the bullet that hit her passed through the back windshield of the pickup and hit the front windshield of a Jeep, sheriff's spokeswoman Debbie Carter said. Investigators determined the gunman fired three times. No one else was hurt.

The woman's family is offering a $1,000 reward for information that leads to an arrest in the case, she said.

The white Altima had gray primer paint on its trunk and it had Hillsborough County plates, the woman said. The grey Altima had Orange County plates, she said.

Based on witness statements, Carter described the gunman as a Hispanic male who wore a black nylon skullcap and a black shirt.

Anyone with information should call the sheriff's office at (813) 247-8200 or Crime Stoppers at 1-800-873-8477.
Click to expand...
 
Last edited:
I would go through the red light if a situation like that brewed up and I would have my revolver on my lap.
 
Could have been a squib round. Hitting a windshield would slow the bullet, but it's still a .44 Magnum, or so they think. Could have been a weaker caliber of that approximate diameter.

So no. I'm not impressed. :)

This is why you don't rely on one bullet to do the job.
 
holy crap. That's a thick noggin! Damn lucky she is.

This is why you don't rely on one bullet to do the job.
Click to expand...

yikes dude. Just yikes. That statement could easily be taken the wrong way by a casual internet surfer who stumbles on this thread.
 
Probably tumbled after it hit the windshield and contacted the forehead sideways making a bigger entry wound.
 
1. Could have been a wadcutter round.

2. Maybe there just weren't any vital organs in her head.

3. Ballistics. They never cease to amaze.
 
Wow...pretty crazy.

This happened right around the corner from my office. It's a fairly industrial area that is bordered by run down communities and also near a large nightclub/bar strip.

During the days it's alright, and mostly filled with workers from the area. But at night it can get a little hairy at times, like this one.
 
Part of the bullet that hit her passed through the back windshield of the pickup and hit the front windshield of a Jeep, sheriff's spokeswoman Debbie Carter said.
Click to expand...

She's definitely lucky, but after passing through two separate pieces of auto glass the bullet may have broken up before it even hit her.

I used to know a Chicago Cop (he was about 5' 8" and 160) that took four .44 mag rounds in his chest and survived to return to full duty.

Bullets are funny things.
 
Average handgun rounds have a very difficult time getting through windshields. We've shot up quite a few cars out this way, and watched .40 S&W, .45 ACP, etc. glance off of windshields even when hit head on at 25 or 30 feet. I don't have much difficulty believing that someone could survive being shot with a handgun, even a large magnum, if the bullet had to penetrate the front glass of an automobile first.

Rifles, OTOH, tend to zip through rather effortlessly and often continue on with minimal deflection.
 
NO WAY was that a .44 Magnum. I doubt it was even a .44 Special. It may have been some kind of zip gun or air gun. A .44 mag would have completely destroyed the cranium. The temporary cavity alone would be larger than her head, which means it's essentially impossible to survive. Nor would any .44 centerfire "break up" on the skull.

I don't have much difficulty believing that someone could survive being shot with a handgun, even a large magnum, if the bullet had to penetrate the front glass of an automobile first.
Click to expand...

"A handgun" maybe, but I don't think you understand what a .44 Magnum is, my friend. It doesn't glance off auto glass. Auto glass does virtually nothing to it. Even a .357 will blow through auto glass. At most it will alter the trajectory of smaller rounds, but it won't skid them off or stop them. That's an old myth. And modern centerfire handgun rounds most certainly do not break up on skull tissue! I've shot a lot of things, including a few I really shouldn't have shot (including an entire hotel once). I've seen what magnum handgun rounds do to animals, buildings, cars, steel barrels, trees, more trees, cabins, log piles, dead moose, and of course I've studied ballistic testing of them. No way was this was a magnum handgun, esp. not a .44 Mag. NO FRICKING WAY. NO WAY, NO HOW, NOT POSSIBLE. It may have been BITS of shattered bullet after impacting something else, but not the whole slug. Or it may have been a much smaller round in the range of a 9mm FMJ or .38 special RN that slipped through.

Weighed against that, we have this:

Judging by the size of the holes, doctors told her the weapon could be a 44.-caliber gun, she said.
Click to expand...

That's what we call double hearsay. She tells the journalist what the doctor supposedly told her, and the journalist tells us. Lots of opportunity there to mess it up. And the citation to "a 44.-caliber gun" doesn't inspire confidence. Look at the scar and tell me you honestly think that was a .44 mag!
 
This isn't uncommon with .22, .25, .32, .38, and other relatively low power low velocity "cheap" ammunition. The human skull is amazing, and very difficult to pierce with handgun ammunition, even more so after the bullet pierced a windshield.

My bet, however, is that it was not a .44 magnum projectile. Even a wadcutter would be hard pressed not to kill at that range, even after going through a windshield.
 
Great. Doctors guessing at calibers now. "Or maybe it was a .45". "Nah, definitely a .44 Special". I think there is too much CSI viewing going on now. I really doubt this was a .44.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.

Similar threads

S
  • Locked
I told you women were hard headed! .44 between the eyes, and walks!
Replies
2
Views
406
Larry Ashcraft
Larry Ashcraft
K
  • Locked
Shot Placement versus Caliber?
Replies
23
Views
1K
shdwfx
S
D
  • Locked
Tell me again how potent your sidearm is.
Replies
1
Views
460
Larry Ashcraft
Larry Ashcraft
R
  • Locked
Brazilian Woman Survives 6 Shots to Her Head
Replies
9
Views
716
crunker
C
NickEllis
  • Locked
Woman shoots self instead of mouse.... with .44mag!
Replies
5
Views
419
Larry Ashcraft
Larry Ashcraft
Back
Top