Can't touch this.
Posted on 04/24/2009 7:15:08 PM PDT by John W
PLEASANT LAKE, Ind. (WANE) - George Fath moved to his mobile home in rural Steuben County two months ago. The previous owners left a lot of trash in the yard, so Fath was cleaning up Thursday afternoon. That's when he found a 22 caliber bullet in the yard. He didn't want his three young boys to get hurt from the bullet, so Fath decided to dispose of it.
"My hammer was outside so I took the bullet and put it on a rock and smacked it with the hammer," Fath said.
Fath wasn't expecting the bullet to fire.
"It went off and went into my belly and knocked me on my butt," Fath said.
Fath said he thought he was shot in the stomach. His wife called 911. According to the police report the bullet didn't actually hit Fath.
"Fath was not bleeding, and it did not appear that Fath was struck with the bullet. Fath suffered a minor abrasion to the area of his stomach," police records read.
But, Fath told NewsChannel 15 the bullet did go in his stomach and doctors removed it at the hospital.
"I smacked the bullet and fell down and blood came pouring out," Fath said. "I was hitting it to smash it. I didn't expect it to go bang."
Fath said he'll never hit a bullet with a hammer again.
"I wasn't thinking about it. It was the dumbest thing I ever did in my life. I suggest nobody do it," Fath said.
Police agree. Steuben County Sheriff Rick Lewis said no one should ever hit a bullet with anything.
"The round can go anywhere. It could hit the person striking it with a hammer, a neighbor, a child in the yard. There's just no controlling where the bullet will go," Lewis said.
A bullet doesn't have to be in a gun to fire.
"Anytime you get pressure [to the end of the bullet] to cause it to explode, it will fire," Lewis said.
If someone finds a bullet, don't throw it in the trash either.
"Call local law enforcement and we can take car of it," Lewis said.
Most of that species shoot themselves in the foot. This one got his a bit higher.
‘Nuff said...but, I am surprised this one didn't reside in Kalifornia.
Can't touch this.
A 22lr is a rim fire round there is no primer.
I use mine for replacement fuses.
The smart thing to do was to use the cartridge (one of my pet peeves) as an excuse to get your wife’s buy in to buy a fire arm to shoot the free ammo with.
Hey honey there is all this 22 ammo out in the yard and I don’t want the kids plying with it so I just have to go out and buy a pistol/rifle to shoot it up so they don’t mess with it.
That’s why liberals hate guns... they keep shooting themselves in the foot.
3 seconds
LOL....I prefer pennies. More cost effective.
brings new meaning to i think i popped a fuse
What do you think is in the rim?
BTW, the cop wasn’t holding a .22 shell, and the picture earlier in the video was a centerfire pistol round (.40 s&w I believe).
Hold muh beer alert! :-)
That’s just frickin’ great. Now the government will be after our hammers too!
Everyone knows you throw them in the fire.
Oh boy. This is embarrassing!! I don’t know which is worse...the dope that hit the bullet with the hammer in the first place...the sheriff, or the tv crew reporting this dramatic story.
Good grief!!
Don't his deputies have firing pins in their guns?
You are correct, but it is JUST A COINCIDENCE!!
Which is why that guy had NO IDEA that if you hit a cartridge with a hammer, it would fire!
I mean, you can’t just jump to conclusions just because a word happens to be the same word as another word.
Who could have possibly guessed that if you hit a cartridge with a hammer - you know, a NORMAL hammer, and not a specialized gun part designed to fire cartridges - that it would fire?!
Yeah, that part was misleading as well, also a 22lr is a very cheaply made round, and you could easily pull the bullet off the casing with a pair of pliers.
I’ll wager he got hit by the case, not the projectile.
Simple physics. The bullet weighs more than the case. Outside of a firearm, the bullet goes a little way, the lighter case goes a long way.
BTW, we used to do all kinds of stupid stuff with .22 ammo. Nobody got seriously hurt.
True story.
Once those puppies start cooking I don't think the firing mechanism even needs to work to make 'em fire.
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