| Okay. Here is a story. Not really a good story, but a story. Today is Wednesday. I am taking sick leave from work. As I will be doing tomorrow as well. And here is what led to this:
Tracy, Amy, Linda, and I went to the shooting range in Upper Marlboro on Monday because they have a "Ladies Night" special where we didn't have to pay lane fee. At first, we weren't going to rent guns or buy bullets from them either because my dad has a Titan 25 caliber gun that he's never shot before. But, when we got there and tried to use it, it wouldn't go off. We had the guy come in to look at it too, and he couldn't get it to work. So, we went out and rented a 9mm Glock and that's what we used. I believe the shell hit me in the eye after I shot. My sister borrowed earmuffs and goggles from her work place. At first, we didn't have goggles on, but then later I felt like I should wear it because the shells flew back. I put them on for 1 round, but since the earmuffs went around them, they started to hurt my ears a lot. So, I had to take them off. Plus it was really hot in there. And since we weren't getting hit by any shells, I didn't feel it was that dangerous not wearing goggles..until one hit me straight in the eye. I wear gas permeable contacts [they are like made of hard plastic/soft glass]. My contact flew out. I found it on the floor and cleaned up and put it back in. My vision was a lil blurred and my contact wasn't feeling very confortable, so I just assumed that the contact shape got messed up when the shell hit it. I took out my contacts and put in my glasses before driving home.
At home, I took my contact out of the case to look at it. And that's when I noticed that it was all scratched up. So, I was pretty lucky that my contact protected at least my pupil. My eye wasn't really bothering me the rest of that night or most of Tuesday cuz I was wearing my glasses. I put in my contacts in again around 520PM on Tuesday to play tennis and it was really bothering me. It felt like my there was an eyelash or something in my eye. I took it out 3 times to wash it and put it back in, but it was still like that. So, stupid me..I just ignored it and played. After tennis, I had karate.. and by then [around 7AM], my vision was pretty blurry and my eye was really bothering me. I finally got home around 1030PM and took my contact out. And even tho I took it out, my eye still hurt - felt like something was in it. So, I called Kaiser and asked for an appointment.
They told me to come in right away..I got there around 1140PM. They did a vision test on me and said I was still 20/20 so that was good. On our way there, I noticed that my right eye had a slight double vision thing going on. The doctor put in some florescent dye and used a black light to look in my eye. That's when he saw the scratches. My dad said like the whole bottom part on the brown part of my eye is all scratched up. The doctor put some antibiotic cream in it and had it patched up [like popeye]. Told me to keep it closed for at least 24 hours until the doctor looks at it on Thursday. So, I'm going in tomorrow morning and if if hasn't healed itself..then I have some more serious problems and would need to see a specialist. Let's hope that doesn't happen.
The range guy didn't really give us any safety precautions. I feel like they should have told me to wear goggles. If I didn't go rent the gun or buy bullets, the guy there wouldn't even have said anything to me. When I rented the gun, all he told me was how to load it and shoot it. The only warning he gave was to not put your thumb on the back because the kickback will cut your hand. I felt that they should have said something about wearing goggles because the shells fly back and maybe making us sign something. My mom said that we should sue them for not telling us all the safety measures. I think it's pretty dangerous, especially for people like me who've never shot a gun before, to go there and not have an "expert" tell us what we need to do and not do.
So, I bet you weren't expecting to here THAT come out right? How did this idea come about? Ask my sister. People at her work [NRL] went shooting when she wasn't there, so she felt left out and wanted to go too. She asked a bunch of people who were interested, looked up all the relavent information needed, and set it up. It's pretty scary shooting the gun. Especially after watching that movie with LL Cool J where the SWAT team went to this isolated island to practice and they all died one by one. There was that one guy who died because the gun backfired. I was nervous about something like that happening. It was an experience, I don't know if I would do it again or not. Probably not.
The End. |
