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October 1981

August 2, 2018
October 1981

Remembering the day of the accident is not possible for me. So, as I tell the story leading up to and during accident, remember that these were stories that were told to me and not what I remember. It was a cool October day in 1981 (Oct 2, 1981), after school a friend and myself at my house. I was on my computer (TRS80 color computer), in the family room when my friend pick-up my Daisy pump BB gun that, I got for my Birthday and few weeks earlier. He asked me if it was loaded and I told him: “no”, he shook the gun and did not hear any BB bouncing around. Then in a playing sense, he aimed it at me, called my name, and as I turned to look at him, he pulled the trigger… This is where my story begins but, before I begin, let me say… That I do not believe I would have left a loaded BB gun lying in my room, pumped enough times to penetrate my skull and lodged a BB, 3/4 of the way through my brain. Once he realized what he had done by seeing me slump in the chair as, blood seeped from my head, he was smart enough to call his house and tell his Grandmother what had happened. But not knowing my address, this 12 year child, that weighed about 80 pounds had to transport me, a 13 year old child weighing about 120, over a drainage ditch, in my back yard to his street and then 4 or 5 house down the street, to his home. Some say this may have been a reason I survived. Once we arrived @ his home the ambulance was waiting. At this point I was slurring my speech and was in and out of conscious. I am told that I was asked if I had been drinking? and I responded “yes”. This was enough for them to not rush me into surgery but rather sit me down and wait for a parent to arrive. Once my mother arrived from work, hours later, she knew that there was something else going on. After a Cat Scan was preformed and it was clear that a foreign object was lodged in the Parietal lobe of my brain and that there was a clear path in my Frontal lobe leading to the foreign object (the BB).

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