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Hunting Accidents Don't Take a Holiday Break

By Steve Lombardi

DOES SAFETY EVER GET A HOLIDAY BREAK?

This is an interesting story for me. But first let me respond to a reader who commented asking if the subject of the injured shouldn't take a day off once a year. I don't think so was my response, because the catastrophically injured don't get a day off, now do they?

Back to today's story about an Iowa man who was shot in the leg while deer hunting and how he's recovering in an Iowa hospital in Des Moines. This story is a familiar one to me because a roommate in college was shot in the lower leg when the shotgun of a member of his hunting party accidentally went off. He was in the hospital for quite some time and then came back to the house where six of us guys lived while attending the University of Iowa as undergraduates. For many reasons I was the one who changed the bandages and added saline solution (I think it was.) so the wound wouldn't dry out. The wound was deep and I remember being able to see the exposed bone. I also recall, and my memory might be somewhat faulty, seeing lead-shot in the bone, although it could have been where the lead shot had been removed.

WHAT'S IT FEEL LIKE TO BE SHOT?

As many of you already have figured out I have a mind that is curious about just about everything including what it would feel like to be shot in the leg by a shotgun. So I asked him and he told me time really-really slowed to a crawl. He first heard the gun go off behind him, then as he turned his head to look back he felt his leg suddenly fly upward; at that point he turned back to see the shot and the inside of his leg spewing out in a vee-shaped mess. When I asked what his first thoughts were and if he thought about dying, he replied that he did and his biggest fear at that point was that if he passed out or became unconscious he could die because no one in the hunting party knew the way out of the woods and back to Iowa City. Of course the part of the story about driving a Trans-Am through the woods while bottoming out in ditches and speeding to the hospital in Iowa City still brings chills and raises the hair on the back of my neck.

That injury came back to haunt him years later when he kicked something and the bone weakened by lead shot still embedded in the bone had weakened the bone allowing it to snap in two. This roommate of ours is a great guy and he's one of the proud Hawkeye fans who still today I call my friend.

Today there is an Iowa man from Vinton who was hunting in Marion County when his gun discharged and hit him in the lower leg. He's 34-years-old and hopefully there is family and friends who will assist him with changing the dressing. There is no mention of whether his gun was a shotgun, so there's not way of me knowing if he's still got shot embedded in the leg bones.

YOUNG HUNTERS TAKE HEED A GUN ISN'T A TOY

To you young hunters out there heed the warning and brush up on your hunting safety rules. The IOWA DNR has a hunter safety education program.

As for the man sitting in the hospital, here at the Injuryboard we wish you well and a quick recovery. Merry Christmas.

GO HAWKS!

And for my college roommate who will miss today's Hawkeye Mini-Reunion here in West Des Moines we'll miss you too. No he's still alive and kicking, but today he's with his family off skiing where he should be. As the Hawks head off to the FedEx Orange Bowl we will be sitting TV side hoping for a win.

Merry Christmas to all of our readers and to those readers at the Lombardi Law Firm blog, The Verdict. Have a safe and happy new year's celebration.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oJ6rqtss8fQ

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vIKPUERhBVU

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=luwYByHRtvU

Originally posted at InjuryBoard by Steve Lombardi

Full post as published by Des Moines Personal Injury Lawyer on December 26, 2009 (boomark / email).