nick

Self-Employed
with Daughter Beth
Shot: November 27 2001
Edinburg Texas

All I remember was smelling gun powder

Nick: "White wing bird season had just finished and I was cleaning my guns. When I leaned over to dip the metal rod with the sponge in the cleaning solution, I don't know if it was my knee, or what exactly happened, but the twelve gauge shot gun went off. All I remember was smelling gun powder. My wife was asleep in the other room and she called 911 immediately. I didn't come to for weeks. They took me to one hospital in Edinburgh. They said they couldn't do anything. They put me in a helicopter and took me to Laredo. At Laredo they said they couldn't do anything. They took me to San Antonio, to Brooks Medical Center. At Brooks they were able to reconstruct my jaw somewhat, using steel, and bone from a hip graft. The right side of my cheek and the right side of the top of my skull are also metal. I have three teeth left. One of my eyes is glass; my other eye got some shot in it. I can't see too well out of it either. My vision and my ability to eat were the most affected. My speech is not good because I lost part of my tongue. I've only got one nostril. They just did enough to keep me going.

I feel degraded

"I didn't have health insurance so they wouldn't do plastic surgery. I was self-employed. I've thought about having it done, and about getting teeth, and surgery to improve my eyesight. I was denied disability and now no insurance company will cover me. I try to laugh to keep myself from crying. I lost the ability to work in an office, mainly because of vision problems. It takes me twenty minutes to read a paragraph. I can't drive; I had to move from the country into town. Now I work outside. I feel degraded. I should not be doing outdoor work. I had an office business running since 1986. My clients now they see me, and they're, 'Yeah do this, do that,' because I'm like a charity case, which I don't want. It's hard for me to talk about it.

I had bought the gun used, someone had taken the plug out

"I had checked that shotgun; I thought it only had three shells in it. I took out three shells. I thought it was unloaded. But on that particular gun, I had bought it used, I found out later that if you take the little screw out and take the plug out, you can put extra shells in the chamber. Someone had taken the plug out before I bought it and they were able to put seven or eight shells in the chamber. That's one of the firearm safeties: Don't ever pull that plug out! I didn't even realize the gun had a plug. In the hunting regulations you can't put more than three shells in the shot gun. It should be manufactured so that you can't take that plug out, so that only three shells can be put in! That shot gun shouldn't be on the market! I tell you from my heart, to benefit society, I think firearm safety should be a requirement because this isn't a laughing matter, what happened to me could happen to other people.

I was a very handsome man

"When I first came out of the hospital my three-year-old daughter was afraid of me. I was a very handsome man, now I look like Frankenstein. I walk into a store like Wal Mart, and they start staring at me. I look like a freak. They say, 'What happened to that guy?' When they look at me like that, I say, 'Hey, what's going on?' and I keep walking. It doesn't really bother me, but inside my feelings are hurt. I'd rather people would either ignore me, or come and ask me, hey what happened? Not just look at me like I'm a freak from some kind of circus."