You can never be too careful..............

(The boys all wanted to cuddle up next to their dad while reading scriptures.)

At least that is what the police officer told me in the ER........"You can never be too careful when it comes to guns." We are human. We make mistakes. We get comfortable. This was a good lesson but a VERY scary lesson our family learned on Sunday night. It was one of the scariest nights of my life. I asked Jared to tell his side of the story since I was only there for part of it. WARNING: if you have a hard time looking at blood, this may not be the post you want to read. I will let Jared take the stage.............



So we decided to go to my mom's on Sunday night. The kids were playing with some toys and I told Colton that he needed to share, he got upset and went outside. He ran outside ended up in the van, without a coat. I went out to check on him and to see if he would come back inside - he wouldn't. Taren and I had been talking about bringing up gun safety with him as we have guns in our home and I thought this would be a good time. I asked him what he would do if he were to find a gun on the way home from school or something. After listening to his answers and talking about them I got my pistol out which at the time was completely unloaded, I don't generally carry it loaded. I let him feel how heavy it is - there is a big difference in the weights of a real and a fake gun. The pistol that I have is a Springfield XD 9MM. I decided to take it apart. The process of taking it apart -and for most semi-auto pistols involves opening and closing the slide, the same process that is repeated when the weapon is fired and reloads. I opened it, moved the lever, and closed the slide. The next step in dismantling is to pull the trigger then the entire slide will come off of the handle. The thing that I forgot was this, I left the full magazine inside the handle. When I opened and closed the slide, it chambered a round. I pulled the trigger because that was the next step, and well with a live round now in the chamber of course it fired, hitting me in the upper, inner thigh and exiting just above the knee. I have no doubt that the Lord and several others were watching over me very closely that night. I missed everything important. The femoral artery, the femur, everything important, I missed. They took X-rays of the skeletal system and CT scans of the vascular system. It seems that I had "just a flesh wound". Now for those that would say "See what guns can do, they are dangerous", let me say a few words about that. A gun is an inanimate object. They can do no harm to anybody unless acted upon. Guns hurt people just as much as forks make people fat. What happened to me was nothing more than an accident. I was not being as careful as I should have been, I was going too fast, not paying enough attention, what ever you want to call it. The key word in that last sentence was "I". Guns are tools that can be used for a variety of uses, nothing more. I learned a lot of things this past week. Here are a few: The Lord watches over us and is aware of us. I learned that a lot of people love us and would drop everything for us, these are called true friends and some of them are disguised as family members. I learned that the woman that runs this blog not only likes me, but really loves and cares for me. I saw it in her eyes when she came into the trauma room in the ER. I knew that before and I never questioned it, however, I saw just a little bit of the depth that is involved with just how she feels and the feelings that are reciprocated are just as strong. I owe a lot of people a lot of from this past week, none of I will be able to repay. For those who expressed concern, watched and cared for my boys, filled a prescription and picked up some gauze, thank you, it did not go unnoticed. Some would call me lucky. I would agree, but say that it is a lot more than that. All of us are not just wandering alone here on earth. We may wander, but are never alone, even when we appear to be by ourselves.

The night we came home from the hospital

entry wound

exit wound

entry wound

exit wound

exit wound

Next day....entry wound

exit wound.....that hanging thing is connective tissue