Have you ever dreamt of being shot by a bullet in your dreams? The mere thought of it is spine-chilling and will make you piss in your pants. It’s hard to imagine the pain one goes through after being shot.
And these stories of gunshot survivors and how they felt after give you an idea of how nerve-wracking it can be. While we read these nail-biting stories, we only wish no one goes through this scary experience.
1. “Right thigh, 9mm, grazing shot across the front of the leg about 4 inches above the knee. It plowed a channel of skin and some flesh off the front. It felt searing hot like someone had laid a hot piece of metal on my leg for a second. Then, the pain went away for a while until the adrenaline wore off. It honestly hurt worse 6 hours later than it did when it happened.”
2. “I didn’t really feel either of mine until about 10 minutes later. Took a grazing shot off my left arm and one in the right hip that went out my back thankfully missing my kidney. The arm felt like a bee sting, the hip knocked me back at a step, the adrenaline at the time masked the pain.”
3. “I was shot in the leg. It felt like a hard flick of a finger then numbness. I didn’t think I was shot until I saw the hole in my pants. Even then I thought maybe a rock hit me or something. No pain or blood until I started walking then came to a gush of blood and then my entire body went limp. People saw what happened so I had help right away. After that, it hurt but somewhere around a 6-7 on a scale of 10. Another time I was hit by a fragment from a ricochet on my forehead. The same feeling of being flicked with a finger. The area around the wound went white and there was no blood. The pain level was around 5. Neither time was bad but I don’t want to try my luck again.”
4. “I was randomly shot while walking down the street with my girlfriend in 2013. I didn’t fall to the ground or anything like that. Walked into a store and told them to call the cops. It didn’t hurt too bad at first. A slight pinch. The heat builds up and the pain comes in. Some throbbing as the blood pumps out.”
5. “Shot twice. The second one resulted in separation from the army. The first was in my armor piece, with no penetration but it felt like I was kicked by a horse. The second one was into my pelvis and it was the worst pain I ever felt, and I still engaged in combat for the next 45 minutes before I could safely be moved back. 10/10 shitty.”
6. “I was shot when I was nine. I didn’t feel anything at first because my mind was in fight or flight mode and my only focus was dialing 911 and saving my mother. I only started feeling the immense stinging/burning sensation when I was loaded into the ambulance. I want to say it’s as if you had a hot iron shoved through you.”
7. “I was hit twice during separate tours in Iraq and Afghanistan. The first time the round caught the armor plate and felt like I had been hit with a baseball bat. It knocked the wind out of me and, when we got back to base I had a huge bruise on my chest. It hurt to breathe for a few days and getting dressed was far but I got light duty during that time. The second time around I clipped the side of my neck. Now that one really hurt and there was a lot of blood (think of your worst razor knick x10) but the pain was cut by the adrenaline.”
8. “Wish I knew, I have no memory of the event. I had gotten off the rail and was waiting at a bus stop with my girlfriend when I was struck by a stray bullet. It entered around my right shoulder and splintered across to my lower left shoulder. Ended up giving me a spinal cord injury, leaving me paralyzed from the chest down, unfortunately. I just don’t like the fact that my girlfriend has to live with that memory by herself.”
9. “The bright side is if you make it to the ER at the hospital with a gunshot wound and you’re still breathing, you have basically guaranteed that you’ll live, no matter what. The patient loss rate for gunshot wounds as long they come in with a heartbeat is in the single tenths of a percent.”
10. “Surprisingly not that painful. The bullet didn’t hit any bone so I imagine that would have been more painful. I was shot with a 45 while driving down the expressway. Bullet went through the passenger door and then through my forearm muscle and into my chest. The bullet is still lodged between my chest muscle and chest cavity. Just knocked the wind out of me, and a burning sensation in my arm where the bullet went through.”
11. “My brother shot me with a.22 when I was about 14. Hit me in the shoulder from about 100 ft away. The only thing that saved me from it being a serious injury was he used my rifle and I hadn’t cleaned it since the last time I went shooting, so it didn’t have that much energy by the time it left the barrel. It went in about 1/2″, I couldn’t get it out and had to go to a local clinic to get it removed. I was more in shock that my asshole brother shot me than by any pain. Honestly, it didn’t really hurt that much.”
12. “I’ve been shot at more than a handful of times. Different spots hurt different amounts in my experience. Arms (I say arms but I’ve only been shot twice in one of my two arms. So I can’t say about my other arm) and calves hurt less than getting shot in the torso IMO. It burns in an instant, its-hot-because-its-cold kinda way. Then it’s just this sort of sharp yet dullish pain like you jabbed yourself with a needle but bigger.”
Read more: 8 People Who Tragically Died Due To Accidents On Sets.