I Get Hit By a 9mm Bullet

Luckily it was only a ricochet, so it didn’t hit me with full force.

But it stung, and I felt as if I had been kicked high up on my left thigh – like someone smacked me with a stick, very quickly but not deeply. I hopped around with my jaw dropped. “Ouch!”

I was at a firearms training class, and we were running a drill where the instructors were moving targets straight at us and we had to draw our weapons, step to the side, and fire at the charging targets. Perhaps shooting at a slight angle caused the ricochet. I limped over and picked up the slug which had just hit me. It was flattened out and had sharp edges. The guy who had fired the round came over and apologized. They had had problems with this guy earlier in the session, and this prompted me to text a buddy the following immediately after the class:

But I didn’t see anything which “that guy” did wrong (although my friend vigorously disputes this). As far as I could tell, it was just really bad luck that the ricochet happened to strike me in the leg. What are the odds? But one instructor told me he had been hit by ricochets multiple times, “In the elbow, in the chin – that is why protective eye covering is mandatory on a hot firing line.” But I had never been hit by a ricochet before. The experience took me quite by surprise.

This was a private training course not designed for beginners. It took place an hour before the shooting range even opened up to the public. We were supposed to know what we were doing. But did we? Was this ricochet a result of unsafe shooting by this one guy?

I don’t think so.

He wasn’t doing anything different than any of us did on this specific drill – at least I don’t think so.

Reflecting back, I think my body was just in the wrong place at the wrong time with that ricochet. It was bad luck. Incredibly bad luck. I have been to many trainings like this one without incident, although almost always they take place at outdoor, not indoor, ranges. Are indoor ranges more unsafe? I suspect so.

I would not say I was all that badly hurt by the ricochet. The steel slug sure stung where it struck me, and it left a nasty black-and-blue bruise, which was as much a welt as a bruise. But I walked out without too much pain and played competitive tennis a few hours later without compromised movement on the court. I was fine. My leg was fine.

But still.

A 9mm bullet fired from a handgun (the guy looked like he was shooting a 1911 double stack) had slammed into me. That is a dramatic happening, even if it was only a ricochet. Even if I was not badly hurt.

So I keep the slug next to me in my car, where I will often have occasion to grab and examine it, appreciate how it weighs more than you would suspect, and run my fingers along the jagged edges of the deformed bullet. I will reflect on the vagaries of chance, the precariousness of life, and the vicissitudes of fate.