Ron Smith
Active member
The exploding shotgun story... One of my hunting partners told me he would not share this story ... he would be too embarrassed. Well, I am embarrassed but will tell it so that maybe someone will be spared learning the lesson the hard way. It has been said a smart man will learn from his own mistakes but a wise man will learn from the mistakes if others. The day after the accident my middle son (the deepest thinker of the 3) called me and asked, ‘Dad, if you had heard this story would you have said ‘Man... that guy is an idiot’? I answered “yes”.
During the February youth hunt you may remember the kid we took out that had never shot a shotgun in his life that shot 2 ducks in 3 shots. His father bought him an 870 for his birthday so his family, my family and my visiting niece all went to Markham park target range. Everyone wanted to shoot so I did not shoot and walked up and down the line working with the novice shooters. During the second round my wife took her station with my Condor o/u. When her turn came she dropped a shell in the bottom barrel and I watched it disappear...the 12 gauge barrels were on it. She handed me the gun and everything in my brain was screaming “Take it to the table grab the dowel and push it out now!” There was a lone shooter not with our group and I felt bad holding him up (even though he was very gracious). I switched the barrels to the 20 ga and Lisa finished her round.
For the 3rdround, I offered the shooter that was not with our group to shoot a round by himself so we wouldn’t slow him down. He insisted that we shoot with him. I gave him station one. I took station four. My turn came and I loaded the shell over the now forgotten, stuck, 20 ga. Shell, yelled “pull” and squeezed the trigger to a thunderous explosion. I looked at my shredded fingers as I went down and I knew immediately what had happened. Fortunately, the friends we were shooting with were medical personnel. My friend immediately ripped his shirt off and wrapped my hand to stem the flow of blood. My wife, who is very cool under pressure, was dialing 911 as she ran to me. The pain was incredible, not just from the loss of fingers but from the concussion from the explosion in my hand. The forearm disintegrated. In an over and under, you have your hand wrapped around the bottom of the barrel at the point of explosion so my hand took a pounding
I hunted with 12 and 20 ga. shotguns in my boat for 20 years and have been ultra cautious for this reason. My brother-in-law called me the next day and said that we all have our hobbies that we love but now and then they reach out to bite us. There’s a lesson to be learned here. When your brain is screaming at you to do something or not do something, listen to it. Things like when I have showed up to hunt with someone and they have no PFD’s in the boat. You don’t want to embarrass them so you say nothing even though your brain says “don’t go!”(I now bring my own!). Or you can’t find your kill switch lanyard so you bypass it and launch anyway. The list of possibilities goes on and on . It’s alright if you say “Geez ...that Ron Smith is an idiot! That would never happen to me.” Do me a favor ...please be a little more careful anyway.
As we headed out the door to the range my wife and I were discussing that we are too busy and need to slow down. Well... now I have been slowed down. One nice benefit of blowing my fingers off was that evening I laid in the hospital and held Lisa’s hand for 5 hours, looked in her eyes and we just talked about everything.. Don’t wait to blow off you fingers to spend some time with the ones you love.
The good news is that they are not my favorite fingers anyway. If the barrel had ruptured through the bottom I would have lost my hand...out the left side and my thumb would have been toast so I think I got off easy. I will have to learn a new way to play the guitar though, but I am positive that I will (baring any future stupid accidents). It will be a few months before I can carve any decoys.
During the February youth hunt you may remember the kid we took out that had never shot a shotgun in his life that shot 2 ducks in 3 shots. His father bought him an 870 for his birthday so his family, my family and my visiting niece all went to Markham park target range. Everyone wanted to shoot so I did not shoot and walked up and down the line working with the novice shooters. During the second round my wife took her station with my Condor o/u. When her turn came she dropped a shell in the bottom barrel and I watched it disappear...the 12 gauge barrels were on it. She handed me the gun and everything in my brain was screaming “Take it to the table grab the dowel and push it out now!” There was a lone shooter not with our group and I felt bad holding him up (even though he was very gracious). I switched the barrels to the 20 ga and Lisa finished her round.
For the 3rdround, I offered the shooter that was not with our group to shoot a round by himself so we wouldn’t slow him down. He insisted that we shoot with him. I gave him station one. I took station four. My turn came and I loaded the shell over the now forgotten, stuck, 20 ga. Shell, yelled “pull” and squeezed the trigger to a thunderous explosion. I looked at my shredded fingers as I went down and I knew immediately what had happened. Fortunately, the friends we were shooting with were medical personnel. My friend immediately ripped his shirt off and wrapped my hand to stem the flow of blood. My wife, who is very cool under pressure, was dialing 911 as she ran to me. The pain was incredible, not just from the loss of fingers but from the concussion from the explosion in my hand. The forearm disintegrated. In an over and under, you have your hand wrapped around the bottom of the barrel at the point of explosion so my hand took a pounding
I hunted with 12 and 20 ga. shotguns in my boat for 20 years and have been ultra cautious for this reason. My brother-in-law called me the next day and said that we all have our hobbies that we love but now and then they reach out to bite us. There’s a lesson to be learned here. When your brain is screaming at you to do something or not do something, listen to it. Things like when I have showed up to hunt with someone and they have no PFD’s in the boat. You don’t want to embarrass them so you say nothing even though your brain says “don’t go!”(I now bring my own!). Or you can’t find your kill switch lanyard so you bypass it and launch anyway. The list of possibilities goes on and on . It’s alright if you say “Geez ...that Ron Smith is an idiot! That would never happen to me.” Do me a favor ...please be a little more careful anyway.
As we headed out the door to the range my wife and I were discussing that we are too busy and need to slow down. Well... now I have been slowed down. One nice benefit of blowing my fingers off was that evening I laid in the hospital and held Lisa’s hand for 5 hours, looked in her eyes and we just talked about everything.. Don’t wait to blow off you fingers to spend some time with the ones you love.
The good news is that they are not my favorite fingers anyway. If the barrel had ruptured through the bottom I would have lost my hand...out the left side and my thumb would have been toast so I think I got off easy. I will have to learn a new way to play the guitar though, but I am positive that I will (baring any future stupid accidents). It will be a few months before I can carve any decoys.
