What’s it Feel Like to Get Shot With a Gun?
Photo: MetalCowboy
We see violence in movies all the time. The kind where if the good guy gets shot, as long as it’s not in the heart, they can shrug it off. Well it just ain’t so, my friends. Getting shot in real life is something that, fortunately, most of us will never experience. Here’s an excellent first hand account from a gunshot survivor. Not for the faint of heart or weak of tummy, so put down that sammich and get to it:
My name is Jesse (online name Danny Bishop). I myself was shot–in the chest–on November 27th, 1994, at point-blank range with a .22″ magnum revolver single-action, convertable–to.22″ LR with alternate cylinder). The bullet was likely 40-grain; the type: .224 caliber high velocity (WMR–Winchester Magnum Rimfire, MAxiMag), with a nominal muzzle velocity of 1,550 fps, from a likely 6.5″ handgun barrel (applied pressure, point blank: 324 foot pounds per sq. inch). I can tell you–not from watching it happen–but from actually experiencing it, exactly what it was like. First of all, there was the most incredible, shocking impact you could ever imagine–equivalent with having an M-80 (quarter stick of dynmamite) go off in your shirt pocket–and I can tell you, I was sent reeling. It felt like I was thrown back good 2-to-5 feet or more, as my legs gave out on me. There was simultaneously, a feeling like a bomb went off INSIDE of my chest, and that of being jack-hammered through my chest wall–all of this, all at once. Then, everything semed to go into slow motion, as undoubtedly, a large amount of adrenaline was released from my adrenal medulla, causing my central nervous system synaopses to fire faster–like a high-speed camera, producing a slow motion effect. I was later told that the bullet (not surprisingly) ricocheted around in my chest like a pinball, first penetrating my entire chest mass, fracture and bounce off my left scapula, hurle back through my chest again, fracture a rib, and then bounce back through, trace a path around another rib (and puncture the pleural lining of my left lung), next flying straight into my spinal collumn, fracturing my T-9 and T-10 thoracic vertebrae, and transecting my spinal cord (I am now paraplegic). Feeling all of this, all at once, was equivalent roughly, I suppose, was like being shot three times or more, not to mention that waves of paresthesia (tingling) echoed and serged throughout my body. My feeling in my legs was gone, just like that, at the same time I was flying backward–into a chair and a desk. Oddly, at that moment, I was hell-bent on protecting my head. Finally, laying on the ground in that room, only a good 30 seconds or so post-impact, I felt my left lung begin to squeeze, and my breaths were agonizingly painful and teribly short. Every breath was a knife turning in my lung. Then, I began to loose my vision–like white-out erasing my visual field) as I began to go into hypo-volemic shock (low blood volume). I lost my ability to see temporarily, and could not tell what was going on around me. Then I passed out for what was probably thirty minutes. It was a darn miracle that I did not die, as a doctor later told me, the bullet almost ‘curved’ around my heart, within a centimeter or two of hitting it or a major blooc vessel (it could have easily hit me right in the inferior, or even the superior, veina cava, near the heart muscle, in which case death would have followed in 1-2 minutes or even fewer, and unconsciousness in thirty seconds or less. As to the question: ‘Does a person writhe in agony?’–No, I personally did not WRITHE in agony, like I had been lit on fire, but I was instantly thrown into the most excruciating, truly agonizing experience of pain I have ever known–and I have had chronic spinal pain ever since, being on prescriptions such as morphine sulfate, Dilaudid (hydromorphone HCl) and levorphanol tartrate. The reason I was not WRITHING in agony is I was knocked into a state of indescribable shock, and was incapable of much, if any movement. However, after waking up thirty minutes or so after passing out, I managed to sit up, despite my paralysis, and I still remember–even though my pain had deminished somewhat at that point, due… undoubtedly, to endorphin release–the feeling of warm blood pouring down my shirt, and adding tot he pool of blood underneath me, the veinous flow coming directly from the now hot, burning wound on, and in, my chest. I laid there for about four more hours before someone found me–I could barely whisper, much less yell, due to my 16% or so lung capacity, and as it turns out, nearly two liters… the amount of fluid in a large soda pop bottle, on my left lung… like a refridgerator crushing the left side of my chest–and by the time the paramedics got there, I was in utter shock. I was also beginning to hurt so badly again that no words can describe it. It was horrible. Hospitalization was no picnic either, let me tell you. Even after draining off the fluid once with a chest tube–a rubber catheter inserted through your ribs, into the pleural lining of your lung, they gave me what is known as positive-pressure respiratory treatment, and the inflation of my lung popped a blood vessel and caused additional pleurasy, and another ‘hemothorax’. Originally, I also had air trapped in my chest–a pneumothorax, which they had to releave with a cannula. That hurt too! After two additional chest tubes and having to bear down to force the reddish.-brown fluid out of my chest cavity and into a collector, I finally regained around 98% lung capacity, amazingly, and then–one month after arriving at Santa Clara Valley Medical Center in the Bay Area, California, I began Spinal Cord Injury Rehabilitation. I had to learn to deal with having little control over my bowels, having to learn how to do a ‘bowel program’ with suppositories, and the fact that I had no feeling in my groin–meaning no future physical sexual feelings, and no ability to masturbate–and still having a huge sex drive… how do you like that?–I had almost no way to relieve tension, escept exciesize, for endorphin release, and taking my pain meds. What made it worse was, before I was shot, at age 16, I had never had sex, and never had a girlfriend, eventhough I can say honestly I am, and have long been, a very attractive man. And even though I have had half a dozen girlfriends now, ten years later, dating was no fun… having to explain my limitations. In October of 2003 however, I had one of the happiest days of my life, howver, when I married my wife, Jennifer. My dad was my best man. However, even being married, and having a willing sexual partner, I find myself doing almost all of the pleasing, and I suppose I will never know what it is like to be inside a woman–to actually FEEL it at all–or orgasm therein. Any of you out there who have had there experience, count yourselves as lucky. Unless there’s sex in there Hereafter–and I hope there is… with my wife, I’m talking, right now–I suppose I will never know what sex is like. You have no idea how angry that makes me, and how much pent up sexual frustratipn a guy has after a decade of no orgasmic release. Hey, that may sound shallow, but TRY IT SOME TIME. It’s funny, though. So many people, when finding out I was shot in the chest, ask the same question. “Did it… hurt?” Um, yeah, it was the most agonizing thing I ever experience, and could ever imagine experiencing, and so I can definately say, ‘It wasn’t like a massage.’ But hey, I understand what fascination people have with pain and extreme injury. After all, before I was shot, watching action movies, I wondered what it was like. Some people have imediate endorphine releases and never have such pain symptomatology. I remember lying in bed, in the hospital, with this bloddy patch over theupper, left quadrant of my chest, thinking, “Wow. Was I really shot? Am I really shot??” it’s hard to believe, when it happens to you. And assuming, if you will, that there’s an Afterlife, I bet people, being delivered the news that they are dead, think/say to themselves, “Wow. Am I really dead? Dead?” Anyway, I won’t bore you any further. I’ll just leave you with, “Being shot–does it… hurt?” Yes, sir-ee, my friend. It most certainly… does. So now you know, like I have… for ten years. : )
Peace, Jesse (’Danny B.’)
Originally posted in Google Answers on 10 Mar 2005 02:36 PST
I LOVE this blog, but I have to be honest……this post is in very poor taste a day after the worst mass shooting in American history.
GS
I’m not sure I agree about it being poor taste. First of all, the world doesn’t need to be put on hold while everyone goes into an orgy of panic/morbid curiosity whenever there’s a large scale tragedy. Secondly, I think it can only help to understand what it truly means to experience violence. Much of the media we watch really glosses over the gory details of being on the receiving end of gun violence. A good slap in the face is probably good for us.
My heart goes out for this guy, who has experienced so much pain at such a young age.
This is incredibly classless. You just come off as a jackass.
PS – your blog is slow, and the registration process for comments is cumbersome. It took me about 30 mins.
I don’t see how this is classless. Just because a tragedy occurred, we all have to walk on eggshells and not talk about the effects guns have? In fact, this article is relative because you now have some idea of what the victims of that massacre went through.
Out of the respect of the families of 32 dead people killed in a mass shooting (at a university!), I think Healthbolt could wait more than 24-hours to post “What’s it Feel Like to Get Shot With a Gun?” It’s just unseemly. Another time, fine, but a day after this tragedy? And yes, dogmatixx, there’s nothing wrong with putting “things on hold” of this nature. You sound you have a lack of respect for the dead and their families and see the event only in the abstract. REAL people were shot and died. REAL people can wait 24-hours before discussing the gory details of ” What’s it Feel Like to Get Shot With a Gun.” Nobody on November 23, 1963 (a day after we lost JFK) was writing about “What’s It Feel Like To Have Your Head Blown Off?” Truly, this entire thing is disgusting and has turned me off to Healthbolt.
I disagree. I found the article enlightening and consider it VERY apropos re: what happened in Virginia. Maybe people will begin to understand what getting shot is truly like. The stories I have seen from Virginia have mentioned hearing a large number of “pop, pop” sounds, which unfortunately seems to reduce getting hit by a bullet to something our of a video game.
But this doesn’t apply just to the latest carnage event. Remember, soldiers and civilians are getting killed every day in Iraq, Darfur, Ethiopia and many other places in the world. Plus of course, all the people who get shot in the USA yearly. Hundreds of thousands of people are shot yearly throughout the world, not just the 32 odd people in Virginia. Why doesn’t that bother you Gerard or Sherwin? Why don’t we have a moment of respect every single damm day for all the rest of the victims in the world? Maybe because we only react to the latest media event of the day? Maybe because the media glosses over the blood, guts and pain that are the result of gun violence? Sheese.
We need stories like this. We need to see, feel and understand the pain and the blood that guns and other weapons inflict on people in full living color on the evening news. Maybe then we will realize that like oil & water, people and guns just don’t mix very well.
You make it sound as though an inanimate object just happened to point itself at someone and then pulled its own trigger all by itself. A gun is just a tool. It is the user of that tool that decides to do good or evil with it. Let’s put the blame where it belongs and that is on the user and not the gun. Just my 2 cents. And I have been a violent crime victim. In 1987 I was shot four times by a guy using a .44 Magnum.
I seem to have struck a nerve here. Let me clarify something:
I did not accidentally post this the day after the VT shooting. I posted it in response to the media coverage of the event. I think it’s timely and topical. This site is about health. My curiosity about gunshot wounds was piqued by the media feeding frenzy, so I went looking, found this and posted it.
As far as being a classless, tasteless, jackass goes, I’ll say this: my heart goes out the the VT victims and their families, but it hasn’t knocked my perspective out of whack. 129 Iraqi civilians were killed on Monday, 35 were killed yesterday. More will be killed today (UPDATE: 150+ as of 9:51pm, GMT). (MANY more, if I start throwing in other regions. Iraq just happens to be a powerful example.)
So I ask you this: When exactly is the “proper” time to learn more about the world we live in? The answer, to me, seems like it will always be, “Right now.”
On a side note:
Sherwin, we’re aware of the technical problems and are in the process of fixing them.
Rock on, Wade. I think your point about the Iraqi deaths is compelling. We’ll keep making the same tragic mistakes unless we can explore why these events occur and learn from them. I am sorry for the loss to the families, truly, but we’re not doing anyone any favors by walking on eggshells for some events but glibly ignoring other equally terrible events. The best thing we can do is learn from all of them, not just the convenient ones.
It’s the way you presented it…. as if it’s entertainment.
“We see violence in movies all the time. The kind where if the good guy gets shot, as long as it’s not in the heart, they can shrug it off. Well it just ain’t so, my friends. Getting shot in real life is something that, fortunately, most of us will never experience. Here’s an excellent first hand account from a gunshot survivor. Not for the faint of heart or weak of tummy, so put down that sammich and get to it:”
Sherwin – you’re full of crap. Get a life.
I hear your pain… I was recently shot from about 15 yards out while camping… no fun. http://www.denveraccess.com/articles/may/whats-it-like-to-get-shot.0507.php
” And yes, dogmatixx, there’s nothing wrong with putting “things on hold” of this nature. ”
And there’s nothing wrong with NOT doing it either. If nobody ever knows just how bad violence really is, people will not be sensitive to it.
Dear Readers in Japan;
Hello I am an American and unfortunately for many in the world, our entertainment industry seems to enjoy placing at least five gun-fights into each movie that they produce. First, I know that firearms are illegal in Japan. In America, one can own – possess – a firearm only after your background has been carefully checked. After a wait of about 2 weeks, you can come and pick up the gun. Second, in every film that you see, the bad guys have their weapons on their person. In USA, unless you possess RIGHT TO CARRY permit you CANNOT bear the firearm in public. Even if you own the gun legally, you cannot just carry the weapon around with you. This confuses many persons about my country. There are more shoot-outs in Cowboy BeBop anime than there are in USA in a month.
Third – Yes, we do have crimes associated with guns. I personally stopped a burglar from entering my home in 2000 with the use of my legally purchased firearm. But in court, I was not charged with any offense and the police were very supportive of me and I went home more educated and respectful of the responsibility that owning a firearm places upon ones shoulders. Just out of interest sake, a bullet travels at about 3000 feet per second! If there were shoot outs like we see portrayed in the movies, persons two miles away from the scene quite possibly could be shot. Hollywood is full of crap!! Do not believe the nonsense you see in our movies or TV shows. I am also a soldier and Iraqis are crazy! The deaths are upon them. Ask your Japanese soldiers when they return from duty in Iraq about just who is the enemy over there. USA as we always do are doing the region a favor by putting those terrorists out of business. And concerning VT – Just think how many lives would be saved if persons who are trained with firearms were also students and when this Korean began shooting, pulled out their pistols and shot the guy in the shoulders, his hips or even his groin — he would have stopped shooting immediately!! Please do not accept nor believe that guns are the issue or problem. It was the shooters mind ( which we can do nothing about) AND it is the fault of cowardly American politicians who seem to think that armed citizens can not be of assistance in putting a stop to crime. With 15 or 20 guns aimed at him do you think he would have continued to shoot?
We are all being lied to and I do not accept those lies. Why should you?
Arigato
Chaser48
Well all u ppl dat say dat was tasteless n all dat how uptight n how far up do u have ure underwear pick it out .but I got shot 6 times now I walk around wit a bulletproof vest n my mercedes is buletproof all ova it felt soo damm bad n no I ddnt fly back I was shot by n ak 47 wit anti.armor bullets or so called green tips in d streets I ddnt fly back n I ddnt feel all 6 bullets hit me I felt 3 n 4rm deir on I ddnt feel nomore I feel 2 d ground n I saw d car just pass me but my vision did go blurry n came back n left 4 awhile . 1 went thru my right lung n every says oh 50 cent got shot in d mouth well I was shot in 1999 I was 16 so I was d 1st 1 lol but yea I got shot in m cheek n it went all d way thru d other 1 …well yea its painfull n 4 jesse I feel u man n have respect 4 wat u went thru
chaser48:
So it’s just the minds of people that kill people? And USA would be safer if more people had guns? Please. That’s like saying the world would be safer if every country had nuclear weapons.
2005:
England had 14 deaths from handguns, USA had 23000 deaths from handguns.
1994:
USA had 14.24 gun deaths per 100 000
Japan had .05 per 100 000
And just think – Handguns are banned in England, and firearms are banned in Japan.
Guns don’t kill people, People with access to guns kill people.
I too was a gunshot victim in 1986. I took a .357 hollow point thru my left elbow from 100 feet away. The sensations were exactly as Healthbolt described. It felt like a baseball bat hit my elbow. The impact force spun me around where I stood before I fell. There was a tingling sensation before I passed out. They were going to amputate – my orthopedic surgeon said it was the worst gunshot wound he’d ever seen – but my team of doctors performed a miracle. Good thing, as I am a professional musician.
i just wanna say that i was shot at point-blank range by a .40 cal automatic pistol on 3-8-08 in the upper thigh it completely shattered my femur bone and i now have a 13in titanium rod in its place with 2 screws. i felt bsolutely no pain at all i just felt my leg swell aginsed my pants. i ended up driving myself to the hospital and until they gace me the first shot no pain
I like to poop my pants. HOOOOOOOOOOO!
everyone who thinks this is a bad blog should be shot themselves…then maybe they’ll understand what a miracle is and how luck a human being could actually be…but also amaze at the fact that a human being was shot…and could live to tell about the experience.
so people who think this was heartless can go fuck themselves and take a nice warm lead ball into their own chest
d bags
i have not been shot YET but i have had my pinky cut off
ive been shot to with a 9mm twice.. i was walkin it was a drive-by.. da first bullet hit my pelvis (hip) and shatterd it.. da other bullet hit my lower bak.. i fell to the floor immeditly.. i dint really fill n e thing i just knew i was shot i felt my blood running down my leg it was warm.. i started callin my family members.. while my kuzin called da cops.. i was at da hospital in shock.. i couldnt belive what had just happend.. the doctors were only able to take out one bullet.. so as i write dis ii still have a 9mm in my groin.. wit a metal rod in my leg.. till dis day i still cant belive it.. dis happend 6-25-08 at 11:15pm..
And then you get the minorities who glamorize this shit. God this country is going to hell. Everyone’s either a god damn pussy like sherwin or a no good thug like …well whoever uses the words “da,” “kuzin,” “dis,” etc. etc.
Wow! I’ve learned more about the readers of this blog than anything with this post. Is the average age 15?
Oh, bringing up Iraq in response to the VT shootings was ridiculous. You can do that with anything. Iraq? What about the MILLIONS who died in WWII? Iraq is just a skirmish! (I don’t believe that, I’m just pointing out that the logic used is the same.) Shifting focus might have been a clever “out” but it minimized the VT shootings whether you intended it to or not. The right thing – the MATURE thing to have done – would have been to acknowledge the differing viewpoints and admit that the post could have been a bit graphic and extreme a day after a mass shooting at a college campus. There’s always something worse we could point to – but that wasn’t the point.
I was actually shot 4 times on 2 separate occasions but none were life threatening. The second time i was shot almost missed an artery by centimeters though.
I got shot through the lungs with almost the exact same weapon back in 1967 when I was eleven years old. The discription is right, it feels like a cherry bomb going off in your chest and there is an electric shock of that parathesia like being grounded and grabbing the spark plug wires on a running motor.
About being spun around or physically moved by gunshot impacts. Generally, most of the body movement from a bullet impact is the involuntary muscle spasms of the major muscle groups when the nerves are hit by the shock wave of the bullet. The author of the article was struck in the spine among other parts of the nervous system. That he would have involuntary contractions and spasms with the loss of voluntary muscular control is to be expected jerking him around with his own muscles. The range of hand gun energy in ft. pounds from about 150ft lbs to 800 ft lb of energy. See http://www.dem.ri.gov/topics/erp/nahems_euthanasia.pdf
800ft lbs is the energy required to move 800lbs one foot against gravity. Automobiles have real knockdown power, in the range of 100’s of thousands of ft lbs of energy. Big caliber rifles can generate thousands of ft lbs of energy. The .50 caliber sniper rifle rounds near 12,000 ft lbs of energy. See http://www.thomas.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c110:S.1331.IS: All this power is being applied in microseconds against the victims tissues and causes explosive destruction, bullet performance and design like hollow points can insure that all the energy is actually transferred into the victim too. A bullet that pass through a person didn’t deliver all of its energy into the target.
In physics, the unit ft x lbs is for measuring torque, while energy is measured in units called joules.