The following people were in the wrong place at the wrong time. If you’ve ever been curious as to what taking a bullet feels like, but haven’t felt like shooting yourself in the thigh, a Reddit thread is here to bring you some firsthand accounts.
1. My Idiot Cousin
Three years ago, when I was 14, I got shot in the shin with a .22 rifle by my idiot cousin. Barely missed the bone, but it left a clean hole straight through my leg. It felt like I broke my leg, followed by being branded with a fire poker. Not as bad as breaking your ankle, but it wasn’t enjoyable by any means.
2. Life Changer
I was shot a few years back in the lower abdomen. I won’t go into specifics, but I was the target. It wasn’t close range, but I think your body goes into shock before anything else. You feel a warmth, then you see the blood, then you panic, and in the midst of the panic you feel the sensation of someone putting a red hot piece of steel inside you, burning from the inside out. Needless to say, it was a life changer, things have changed and I’m happy to be writing on Reddit. Yay for me.
3. True Gore
I was shot in the leg. The instant of it happening wasn’t anything more than you’d expect. Loud. I didn’t feel much at the time but I was heavily intoxicated.
Seeing the flesh hanging out of the back of my leg was probably the goriest thing I’ve seen in my life. The 40-cal hollow point decided to carry some the muscle out of the back of my leg. The pain came the following days. My calf was pretty tore up but it was through and through, didn’t hit bone, etc. 9/10 would do it again.
4. Mugged
I used to live in a really sh*tty part of Chicago. One night, coming home from work ,I got mugged (it wasn’t my first time). The guy asked for my wallet and phone, and I gave them up without hesitation. He pointed his gun at me and pulled the trigger and shot me in the chest. Blacked out immediately. I had some sharp pains when I woke up in the hospital. They caught the guy a few months later, after he shot and killed an old man whose house he’d broken into.
5. I Dug It Out With a Screwdriver
I was shot by a druggie because one night when I was walking to a Halloween party I happened to be dressed like a cop for the party. I got hit in my right calf and the initial impact just felt like a burning sensation in the spot because my adrenaline was pumping. Then later, when we got to safety, I looked down and I saw I had been shot and then it felt like just a terrible burning sensation in my whole right calf. I then had to dig the bullet out with a screwdriver.
6. Shot in the Ass
I was just walking down the street and got shot in a drive-by. At that instant, it kind of felt like having a bunch of really bad bruises and getting them all punched. I was shot in the ass and it went through both cheeks and into my thigh. At first I didn’t even know I was shot, but I felt back there and felt the warm liquid. I walked home and had my mom take me to the hospital. I was seventeen at the time.
7. Tummy Shot
My upstairs neighbor had a gun go off and I got shot in the stomach while I was sitting on my couch. I was taking a drink out of a glass and the bullet hit the glass, causing it to explode in my face and arms as well. It was so, so sudden. Very scary.
8. Thoughts of Death
I got shot in the arm while in service patrolling in Iraq. Basically, hurts like hell. It feels like knives are cutting inside where the gash bleeds the most. It does numb out eventually. I had thoughts of death floating in my head but as a soldier I had to stay cool or I would have a harder time recovering.
9. Hawaiian Punch
I got shot right in the forehead. At the instant it was more surreal than anything–I just had this ringing noise in my head and kept trying to tell myself it wasn’t real and didn’t actually happen.
For the first 15 minutes or so there were tons of thoughts rushing through my head: “What am I doing with my life,” “I should’ve stayed in bed today,” “Am I going to live?”
The thing my buddies did was clean it up with a little bit of alcohol, apply pressure to stop the bleeding, or at least lessen it. Then they brought me a six pack of Hawaiian Punch so I wouldn’t pass out, which for whatever reason was the single greatest thing in the world at the time. I’ve loved Hawaiian Punch ever since.
10. Thankfully, One Testicle Survived
My friend got a 9mm Smith and Wesson for about $200. The next day at his mom’s house, I’m sitting next to him on his futon playing “SKATE” on his Xbox 360, when he starts pulling back the chamber so the bullets fly out the side and he tries to catch them in his hand (the gun was pointing away from me).
I notice this but felt that there was nothing wrong with this action (I was high) and continued to play my video game. About 30 seconds later I heard what could only be compared to a firework going off next to my ear, smoke began to rise and my friend jumped up. At this point I began to feel an immense amount of heat in my groin–not so much pain, but like someone poured superheated Jell-O on my lap.
It was at this point that I pulled up the waistband of my jeans and basketball shorts and saw the inside of my exploded scrotum. The bullet had entered my right leg, went through my thigh, entered my sack, grazed my right testicle, went back out the left side of my scrotum, entered my left thigh, and finally exited out of my left thigh.
Though I was definitely in shock, this is where the real pain set in. It felt like Tyson in his prime used my scrotum as a speed bag. My legs were completely useless. I could stand up, but all my strength was gone.
To be honest, I didn’t even know I was shot in the legs–all I could feel was the pain in my balls. My friend’s family threw me into the back of my car and dumped me at a local hospital. Doctors told me the bullet came a 1/4 inch away from my femoral arteries, but more importantly both of my testicles and my penis survived the accident. As for the good news, I had a beautiful baby girl on April 26, 2013, so at least one of my balls works very well.
11. Drugs are Bad, Mkay
When I was out being a dumbass and selling and doing drugs, I was shot. Once in the left shoulder and once in the left leg. I briefly remember it burning like hell. I also remember feeling the pain of the second shot, before I heard the gun pop a second time.
I woke up in an ambulance a couple times, then finally in a hospital bed. Oh yeah, I was handcuffed to the hospital bed, too. I am not sure which was worse: the pain from being shot or trying to figure out what the hell I was being charged with at the time. It all worked out because the drugs I was selling were in my own Rx bottle with my name on it, so no charges that time. I f*cked up eventually and ended up in prison.
12 . Just Another Day in Afghanistan
I was shot two times in the back and once in the arm in Afghanistan. I was only conscious for about seven minutes. I felt pain nearly the entire time I was awake. But as the minutes passed it was starting to go away and I kept falling asleep or passing out. I kept putting my head down and closing my eyes because it felt so good. I felt frozen on the ground and couldn’t move or breathe well at all. It felt like my guts had been ripped apart and pulled out of my body.
I thought I was going to die for sure–the pain, the blood, the screaming around me. I was also sure the guy was going to finish me off. I later found out he did walk over to me but was distracted by others shooting at him.
What was going through my mind:
- First two minutes: Holy sh*t I’ve been shot, I’ve been f*cking shot! Help me! Help me! I don’t want to die! (I was trying to scream.)
- Minutes two to four: Please, if there is a God, let me go to heaven. (I didn’t want to just die … to become nothing and go into blackness, as I was seeing. It really scared me into wanting there to be an afterlife.)
- Minutes four to six: I just want to go to sleep and die. I have accepted my death. I love my friends and family so much. (At this point, I was going in and out of consciousness.)
My squad leader was slapping me in the face to keep me up. My last memory was hearing the rotor of a Blackhawk. The next thing I know I’m in a Walter Reed, a week later, confused as sh*t, thinking I was captured.
13. Show Me the Money
My seven-year-old son and I were coming home late from visiting family. I let him out at the front door so he could go inside to use the bathroom. I was about to drive around back to park the car when I noticed an old junker idling in the street at the entrance of our driveway.
I knew something wasn’t right, parked the car and ran to catch up with my son at the front door. When I got there, a man with a gun came up from the side of our house. He said, “Show me the money.”
My son was frantically trying to open the door and my husband inside heard the commotion and came to the door. As he saw what was happening, he pushed open our heavy iron door into the guy, knocking him backward. The guy shot me in the face as he ran off.
I didn’t even realize that I had been shot because the only real pain I felt was from the exit wound behind my ear. It was an excruciating burning sensation, but what I remember most was the horrifying feeling of the hot blood pouring out of my mouth and down my back.
The scar on my nose is hardly noticeable and the scar behind my ear stays covered by my hair most of the time so I don’t really think about it. I was pregnant at the time, and my son was born a few months later, perfectly healthy.
14. One Strange Night
My story is not very dramatic, but is pretty strange. When I was in high school, my girlfriend’s car broke down on the side of the road and I drove over to try and help. While I was looking under the hood, I felt something slam into my back right at my hip. Initially, I thought it was some kind of animal that had jumped up and bit me but there was nothing there except for the girlfriend and me. I reached back and felt the spot and there was a fair amount of blood.
I worked nearby, so I went into work and then to the bathroom to try and get a look at the spot in the mirror. As I undid my jeans to see the spot I felt something fall down my pants leg. I looked down and there was a .22 bullet on the ground.
Not sure what else to do, I called the police. The officer came by and took a look. He said that probably somebody was either target shooting or more likely shooting at a bird or squirrel and I was hit with a stray bullet. Apparently a .22 can travel one mile or more.
15. 500 Percent Overtime
I was shot in my chest in my late twenties. Weirdly enough, the first response was calm, almost like sinking in water with a scuba mask.
Then it was like I woke up from a dream, and suddenly my mind was working at 500 percent overtime trying to work out the best thing to do, whether I was going to die, and if there was anything I could do to stay alive. That’s the thing about being shot in the chest: We’re conditioned to believe that it’s instant death, when in fact there are small things you can do.
The moment after being shot, it was like I had dozens of voices in my head telling me which way to fall. I even got trapped with an old frenemy of mine, who was telling me just to let it go. Luckily, I managed to get away from him and wake up in a hospital. From then on, it got even stranger when I remembered that the person who shot me was my best friend’s wife, but that’s a whole different story.
