I was shot by a blank rifle cartridge.

Sheldon tells me that I should include this here, before his father tells his version…

Austin, TX Aug 1, 1968 I was in the family garage enjoying the gunpowder that I could get out of the 500 blank M-16 shells that my dad had brought back from his National Guard 2 week training. It soon became obvious that instead of empting each brass shell to obtain the gunpowder and then go through the work of re packaging the gunpowder in a tight compact package, with a homemade fuse to create a loud bang, that simply hitting the primer should activate the "bang".

My older sister's boyfriend, a  friend, my youngest sister and I discussed the concept and decided that placing a shell in the bench mounted vice in garage, placing a 12 penny nail against the primer and whacking the nail with a hammer would be a good idea. It was a blank and would just go BANG, right?

I hesitated too long with the nail and the hammer and Ken ( the sister's boyfriend) who was 3 years older and sooo much wiser, took the nail and hammer from me and whacked the shell.

BAM!                                           

It was loud! Like a .357  had been fired without hearing protection loud!

And something kicked me in the side and threw me a few feet away against an old rollaway bed.  And it hurt! And it was HOT!

I must have had an odd expression on my face as the others turned to me and saw me with both hands on my side just above my jeans waist band.

"I've been hit."

Not believing me, Ken pried my hands away to see a tiny dime sized hole with just a little blood and some fat tissue leaking out.

He told my youngest sister to get mom.  I complained that my vision was getting dark and Ken picked me up and laid me on the hood of the family station wagon with my feet up the windshield. My vision returned to normal. Mom came in and got the story. We could see from the brass shell  ( now expanded dramatically, that there was a piece missing about the size of a dime, about the same size as the hole in my side.

Mom went to house and called and located a surgeon that had worked on dad a few months earlier. She told him the situation and he agreed to wait at the St. David's hospital there in Austin. Some 15 miles away. There was no ambulance service, no EMS, no 911.

The surgeon had told mom to keep direct pressure on the wound. They laid me across the back seat of the station wagon and my friend mashed on my stomach. We sped to the hospital. I recall seeing a group of nurses and doctors outside the hospital entrance, I got out of the car and was able to climb onto the gurney, they wheeled me inside.

Just inside the entrance in a small exam room, the doctor ( same surgeon) held up a long shiny set of forceps and said " Have seen Gunsmoke? I'm going to probe for the bullet."  I nodded and he stuck about 6 inches of the forceps into the hole. I shouted  " Wait, wait , wait". he withdrew the forceps and I said " In Gunsmoke they give you a shot of whiskey for the pain, can I get some whiskey"?

He chose against the whiskey and instead injected some painkiller around the hole. He back in. It was not any better. If the pain killer was doing anything, it was doing it to my skin, not my insides and the pain was incredible.  he wisely gave up trying to locate the tiny piece and sent me to X Ray and prep for surgery.

Knowing what we know today of first aid , it is apparent those practices were not in place in 1968.

My vision being so quickly affected and then improved by body position is a clear indication of blood loss to the brain. There was no blood leaking out of me, but it was going somewhere. My friend’s direct pressure probably saved my life.

When we arrived at the hospital, no one took a blood pressure or pulse rate. If they had, they would have seen the critical state we were in.  My blood pressure would have been unreadable and my pulse rate would have been about 1000. The piece had sliced a hole in my left femoral artery. I was bleeding out.

So, I was lucky that the doc couldn't find the piece with the forceps. I think if he had, he would have sewed the hole shut and wished for the best.

Instead the X Ray showed the location and the doc quickly sliced a 6 inch vertical opening just to left of my naval and learned what was going on. My body cavity was full of blood. They quickly typed my blood and began infusions. I took 13 units.

The doc sewed the artery back together, and found a nick on the top of my colon and sewed that back, then retrieved the tiny piece of brass and sewed the incision closed.

Being 15, I healed rapidly.

Also, being 15, I didn’t quit making homemade bombs or explosives, I just got more sophisticated with the ignition.

We lived through crazy dangerous stuff back then.