Things you're tired of seeing in movies
- Thread starter Joosh
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p51
Sr Member
Thanks.
Funny thing was, I was talking over the Batt net at the time and everyone heard me say, "Roger that, wait one while we -SON OF A B***H!!!" I kept having that quoted back to me for a while afterward.
It was a very small cut, only called for a bandaid and a new pair of boots. a quarter inch lower, though, and I'd have probably lost several (if not all) of my toes.
That was hardly the only close call I had, but that's another story...
Haha... Like I said, it is a bit embarrassing and I think I have told this story before, but here you go:
In my senior year in high-school, I spent a lot of time with my grandfather who owned a used Baretta 92F which was a Police model that had a cut down hammer (there was no hammer spur for your thumb to catch on). It had a decocker but I had never used one before. We had cleaned and reloaded the gun which of course ****** the hammer. I wanted to let it down, and being ignorant of how a decocker works, I instead did the old "pull the trigger and ease down the hammer" routine. You will remember I pointed out that this was a cut down hammer and you can guess where things went from there. I was sitting when I did this, and foolishly had the barrel pointed at my leg. Fortunately, we always load an FMJ as the first round, just in case there is an accidental discharge. The bullet passed right through the thickest part of my right thigh (thankfully missing the bone). The hole in was almost a perfect circle. The hole on the backside of my leg was a little more ragged and larger, but still, pretty small. When it happened, the shock was immediate. I said "@#$%, I shot myself", the only curse word I ever used in front of my grandparents.
There was no pain and initially there was very little blood. I set the gun down, stood up, stuck my thumb in the hole in the front of my leg and my ring finger in the hole in the back and made my way up to our house, about 200 yards away. I had no trouble walking, but started feeling light headed. My grandfather had run ahead of me to tell my mom and she came running out hysterical. I reassured her it was alright but that I was pretty sure I was going to pass out. I laid down on the floor and did. I came to about 1 minutes later as they were trying to drag me to a car and were bouncing my head off some brick steps. I told them to stop, got up and walked the rest of the way to the car... again, without problems.
On the way to the hospital, my leg started burning intensely and continued to do so for a while. When we got to the hospital, they took x-rays to ensure no fragments were left in me (it was a through and through...
) and then did exactly what you see in the movies. They put neosporin on the hole in the front followed by a small gauze pad and the same on the back and then a couple of wraps of gauze around my leg. That was it.
The next day my leg hurt like hell and I was on crutches for about two weeks after. I have no long-lasting impact from it (besides my wounded pride), but I do have two nice scars as a constant reminder to be exceedingly careful with firearms and to treat them with the utmost respect.
WIth that said, I want to be clear that I was insanely lucky. If that bullet had clipped a major blood vessel, I likely wouldn't be telling you this story. If it had hit bone, I might not be walking. However, it was a true through and through without hitting anything but meat and from a movie perspective, I was still completely mobile and functional immediately after it happened. More than anything, it made me rethink the idea of stopping power and shooting someone and then seeing how they are doing.... bullets aren't magic and you can shoot someone without it stopping their aggression, so best to keep shooting until they stop.
PS. Oh... and my high school buddies found it endlessly entertaining to mock me about it... here are couple of photos I kept from some of that razzing.
In my senior year in high-school, I spent a lot of time with my grandfather who owned a used Baretta 92F which was a Police model that had a cut down hammer (there was no hammer spur for your thumb to catch on). It had a decocker but I had never used one before. We had cleaned and reloaded the gun which of course ****** the hammer. I wanted to let it down, and being ignorant of how a decocker works, I instead did the old "pull the trigger and ease down the hammer" routine. You will remember I pointed out that this was a cut down hammer and you can guess where things went from there. I was sitting when I did this, and foolishly had the barrel pointed at my leg. Fortunately, we always load an FMJ as the first round, just in case there is an accidental discharge. The bullet passed right through the thickest part of my right thigh (thankfully missing the bone). The hole in was almost a perfect circle. The hole on the backside of my leg was a little more ragged and larger, but still, pretty small. When it happened, the shock was immediate. I said "@#$%, I shot myself", the only curse word I ever used in front of my grandparents.
There was no pain and initially there was very little blood. I set the gun down, stood up, stuck my thumb in the hole in the front of my leg and my ring finger in the hole in the back and made my way up to our house, about 200 yards away. I had no trouble walking, but started feeling light headed. My grandfather had run ahead of me to tell my mom and she came running out hysterical. I reassured her it was alright but that I was pretty sure I was going to pass out. I laid down on the floor and did. I came to about 1 minutes later as they were trying to drag me to a car and were bouncing my head off some brick steps. I told them to stop, got up and walked the rest of the way to the car... again, without problems.
On the way to the hospital, my leg started burning intensely and continued to do so for a while. When we got to the hospital, they took x-rays to ensure no fragments were left in me (it was a through and through...
) and then did exactly what you see in the movies. They put neosporin on the hole in the front followed by a small gauze pad and the same on the back and then a couple of wraps of gauze around my leg. That was it.The next day my leg hurt like hell and I was on crutches for about two weeks after. I have no long-lasting impact from it (besides my wounded pride), but I do have two nice scars as a constant reminder to be exceedingly careful with firearms and to treat them with the utmost respect.
WIth that said, I want to be clear that I was insanely lucky. If that bullet had clipped a major blood vessel, I likely wouldn't be telling you this story. If it had hit bone, I might not be walking. However, it was a true through and through without hitting anything but meat and from a movie perspective, I was still completely mobile and functional immediately after it happened. More than anything, it made me rethink the idea of stopping power and shooting someone and then seeing how they are doing.... bullets aren't magic and you can shoot someone without it stopping their aggression, so best to keep shooting until they stop.
PS. Oh... and my high school buddies found it endlessly entertaining to mock me about it... here are couple of photos I kept from some of that razzing.
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p51
Sr Member
But the original post that led to all this is valid, it is pretty stupid how often the good guy gets shot through and then presses on like nothing happened.
Life don't really work like that. As Art pointed out in the previous post, you get over not feeling anything pretty fast and things then get serious, even for a minor wound.
Life don't really work like that. As Art pointed out in the previous post, you get over not feeling anything pretty fast and things then get serious, even for a minor wound.
glunark
Sr Member
Well you do get desensitized really quickly.
I have not been a homicide cop, but my last house had mice in the attic, I had to put some traps down, and the first time I heard it snap, and saw the little body, I cried, A grown man because I had killed something.
The second time I was still upset, but there was no tears.
By the time they were in double figures it was just part of the weekly routine.
I have not been a homicide cop, but my last house had mice in the attic, I had to put some traps down, and the first time I heard it snap, and saw the little body, I cried, A grown man because I had killed something.
The second time I was still upset, but there was no tears.
By the time they were in double figures it was just part of the weekly routine.
mattycsi
Master Member
When you see a seasoned detective go into a scene and recoil in horror its just a device to try and sell it that its a real nasty scene.
When your job is to regularly get elbow deep in that mess you get totally unfazed by it real quick. And you do tend to be weary because you know the job is gonna be a real ball acher with people and brass riding you for results and answers the whole time.
Yeah but the cops I know IRL are neither jaded nor horrified on the job. In truth they are professional on the job, even with horrific events, and appropriately disturbed in private. I couldn't stand that series Homicide because after a couple of episodes I felt it oversold that cop archetype.
mattycsi
Master Member
I don't believe for a minute they would be anything other than professional, but I guarantee there will be an essence of "ho hum another one of these", or FFS! about them when they get there. Its inevitable, it does become routine, its probably part of the coping strategy, file it away with all the other humdrum an its easier to forget and not dwell on it.
You're right about some of the cop shows, they do over egg it a lot sometimes.
You're right about some of the cop shows, they do over egg it a lot sometimes.
p51
Sr Member
Yeah, after you see the first few dead folks, you harden your heart up really fast. I'd expect a homocide cop to really be unfazed after a while.
Saw two guys burned down to the skeleton once on active duty stateside before 9/11, not the first (nor the last) dead people I'd seen. They'd bene tearing around a training area we were in and rolled the car off an embankment, into a tree. Car caught fire and they cooked, alive, in the car until it burned through the branches and landed upside down, mercifully putting them out of their misery. I still hear the screams at night, though.
Anyway, someone with me had been a Ranger in Somalia, and was completely unfazed. He took a can of pork and beans out of my ruck, opened the lid slightly and put in on top of the still-smoldering car.
The EMTs showed up, civilians, one of which had to be new. They saw him pull the can off the car and start eating. She asked him, "How could you use the car to heat your food?"
He looked at her and with a smirk, said, "Because I forgot to bring my [bleep]ing marshmallows!"
At that time, it was the funniest thing I'd ever heard. We all laughed until we were crying.
But now, many years later, it chills my blood to think how hard hearted I was.
You can lose that hardness through time, but never completely.
Saw two guys burned down to the skeleton once on active duty stateside before 9/11, not the first (nor the last) dead people I'd seen. They'd bene tearing around a training area we were in and rolled the car off an embankment, into a tree. Car caught fire and they cooked, alive, in the car until it burned through the branches and landed upside down, mercifully putting them out of their misery. I still hear the screams at night, though.
Anyway, someone with me had been a Ranger in Somalia, and was completely unfazed. He took a can of pork and beans out of my ruck, opened the lid slightly and put in on top of the still-smoldering car.
The EMTs showed up, civilians, one of which had to be new. They saw him pull the can off the car and start eating. She asked him, "How could you use the car to heat your food?"
He looked at her and with a smirk, said, "Because I forgot to bring my [bleep]ing marshmallows!"
At that time, it was the funniest thing I'd ever heard. We all laughed until we were crying.
But now, many years later, it chills my blood to think how hard hearted I was.
You can lose that hardness through time, but never completely.
mattycsi
Master Member
I think I laughed way too hard at that.
Don't beat yourself up over it though, that kind of gallows humour is very common in those kind of circumstances, Helps you get through it. I've had to walk out of scenes in the past and get my breath back coz I've been laughing too much.
Don't beat yourself up over it though, that kind of gallows humour is very common in those kind of circumstances, Helps you get through it. I've had to walk out of scenes in the past and get my breath back coz I've been laughing too much.
It's a funny thing you mention the "gallows" humor which is definitely present.
I'm a physician (before that a heart-lung perfusion technician) and have managed some bizarre cases myself. We've been amused about the patient who was so edematous (heart and renal failure) we had to flay open his scrotum that was approaching the size of a basketball. I've drained off over a liter of pus from an empyematous lung and had colleagues reeling over the smell. Or the patient who was so obese we had to call up a university that had a veterinary department to find a CT scanner used for horses. I've exchanged stories about the "dumbest donor" when I used to harvest organs (mine was a drunk, stupid guy tried to dive into a hotel swimming pool from a hotel balcony ... and missed... or the guy who somehow managed to run himself over with a golf cart.) I've worked in a level 4 (Max security) California state prison (seriously one of the most violent prisons in the state) for 3 years where gang members are actively at war (The most horrific thing was a fella who literally chopped up his "cellie" and bundled him up in bedsheets and hung him from the bars. He slept and this was discovered in the morning.)
There's a lot of gallows humor in my profession, too. I don't think you can mentally survive without a sense of humor.
I've laughed a lot at stuff I probably shouldn't have laughed at.
But one thing I never did was stare at the horizon and brood about the "cruel" world we live in.
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Happens in the news biz, too. You come across a grisly story, think "that's horrible" to yourself, then go about your business, which might include joking around with your coworkers even while discussing said grisly story. In our newsroom they have a camera where they often have reporters doing their on-camera bits (as opposed to at the desk in the studio with the anchors), and sometimes we have to catch ourselves from laughing amongst each other in the background about something else while the reporter is talking about a drowned child or somesuch.
You can't allow yourself to go to pieces over things that one would naturally think it would be appropriate to go to pieces over, because nothing would ever get done.
You can't allow yourself to go to pieces over things that one would naturally think it would be appropriate to go to pieces over, because nothing would ever get done.
Zombie_61
Master Member
Through the front, and through the back?
p51
Sr Member
I agree fully. I can't think of any remake that was as good as (let alone better) than the original.
I seriously expect someone to try to re-make 'Casablaca' or 'Gone with The Wind' someday.
An all-female Ghostbusters? Pass.
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