Who has done it? Who blew the hand off of the millionaire?
One Friday evening we received a radio call from a local fire department. They were bringing in a 58 year old woman with a gunshot wound to her hand. She claimed that she had been cleaning her shotgun and it went off and injured her hand. Our medical center is located in an area of impressive wealth and more impressive poverty and gang activity, so we assumed it was from the poor side of town. When we got the address it was from a mansion located on "the lake", not what we expected at all.
When she arrived she was intoxicated with alcohol and had been taking prescription medications too. Her prescription drug problem had been long standing as was her alcohol consumption. She was stable, alert and able to describe what happened. She told us that she had been at home with her adult son and husband and the shot gun fired while she was cleaning it.
Her left hand was de-gloved from above the knuckles to the tips of her fingers. The bones where not broken, the tendons and ligaments all intact. While we were talking she was opening and closing her injured hand and just looking at it with a blank expression. To say this was a strange event would be an understatement. Surgery and anesthesia were called and plans to take her to surgery were made.
The question is do you think she could have blown her own hand off while cleaning a shotgun?
Image Credit: Erik Charlton
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