Take a Moment

[Hunting Wife]

Mine is from duck hunting once. I hadn’t been hunting all that long, probably not my second or third season. It was cold and wet, sitting in the cattails. After the first couple passes I started having trouble with my safety. On closer inspection, there was a piece of cattail wedged in the safety mechanism. No idea how that got there, but the safety wouldn’t go all the way either direction. I thought if I tried working the safety a few times, I could either break the cattail or work it out enough to get a hold of it.

It was cold. I’m wearing big gloves which is always a problem for me because I have small hands so most gloves have a bunch of extra finger at the tips that is a real pain. As I’m fiddling with the safety, I couldn’t really feel much with all that extra glove. All I can figure is that I accidentally got a wad of extra fabric or my actual finger inside the trigger guard as I was messing with it and the gun went off. In the blind, with my husband and another friend sitting in either side of me. Thankfully I had it pointed out over the spread, but that scared the absolute hell out of me. There isn’t a time handling a gun now that memory doesn’t cross my mind. So stupid.

 

[Hem]

Great post and great reminder for all of us, regardless of how perfect we believe we are.

I too had an incident about 20 years ago on an antelope hunt with my father. I chambered a round on a buck but decided to let him pass at the last moment. My father and I returned to the truck to move on. I placed my rifle in a gun case in the back seat. While doing so, my father opened the passenger side rear door to put away his pack. With my rifle in the gun case, laying on the rear seat, and my father standing in the door opening of the rear door, the barrel is pointing directly at my father. It was at this point that I remembered I forgot to clear the round from the chamber. Got him moved before I pulled the rifle from the case and removed the round. Closest I have ever been to puking my guts up while hunting. Thinking of what I could have done to him, my mother and my family makes me sick to this day. Lessons like these suck but can be valuable. Learn from others mistakes.

Similar incident. End of the day during rifle season I was back at my truck when two other hunters appeared. The man handed his rifle to his wife and came over to talk with me. She opened the passenger side door of their truck and put both rifles on the seat pointed towards the opposite door. One rifle discharged and blew a sizeable hole through the opposite door about stomach level. She had an immediate hysterical breakdown.

 

[Hem]

A friend was sitting, waiting for some turkeys. Fell asleep and the shotgun slid off his knee and blew a crater between his feet.