A Texas lawmaker is lucky to be alive after an apparently stray bullet hit his head during a New Year's celebration early Sunday, authorities said.
State Rep. Armando "Mando" Martinez, D-Weslaco, said his wife had just given him a kiss shortly after ringing in the new year with family and friends, and the next thing he knew, "it felt like a sledgehammer hit me over the head."
A bullet fragment had just punctured the top of the south Texas legislator's head. Martinez said he had just stepped outside a home in a rural neighborhood north of Weslaco when he was hit. Martinez, 40, was transferred to the neurosurgical unit at Valley Baptist Medical Center in Harlingen, where surgeons removed the bullet fragment. The fragment had penetrated his skull and lodged itself into the dura mater, the top layer of the brain, doctors told Martinez.
The fragment appears to be from a .223 caliber round, said Martinez.
Hidalgo County Sheriff Eddie Guerra said Martinez's survival was nothing short of a miracle. The sheriff's office is investigating the shooting, and investigators "have reason to believe that (Martinez) was hit by a stray bullet," county sheriff's office spokesman JP Rodriguez said. "There is no evidence to indicate he was targeted," Rodriguez said. "It was a miracle last night. I was given another chance at life and I'm grateful for it," Martinez said.
Martinez was elected to a seventh term in November and scheduled to take the oath of office January 10.
Okay, folks! I will put this as simple as I can.
ReplyDeleteAs a fellow 'gun owner,' you need to know that when you go outside and discharge (fire) a weapon into the air, eventually the discharged projectile (the bullet) will be over-taken by gravity and return to Earth (somewhere along it's trajectory)!
You do understand that, right?
So, if you don't understand that (gun safety) you are the type of person that should never, ever, EVER have any weapons in your possession.
Only an idiot fires a gun into the air.
Got to love them (idiot) Cowboys!
If he'd have had a gun he could have defended himself.
ReplyDelete@David (since this site won't let me reply directly) WRONG!!! It is my belief that the bullets go up and get stuck in the clouds. Since beliefs are as important as facts, and the liberally bias science you are trying to use, I'm right:)
ReplyDelete+ 1 million and then some!!!
ReplyDeletewhich is also why i never go outside during fourth of july, memorial day, labor day or new year's eve "celebrations and fireworks." you have idiots who truly believe that if they shoot their gun into the sky, that their bullet just disappears into the heavens. no thank you. I'd rather be safe than be hit by a fucking moron playing w/ a gun.
ReplyDeleteOnly bullets can stop falling bullets. Shooting into the air continuously is the only effective defense against falling bullets. Pigeons should be armed.
ReplyDeleteWhat if someone doesn't 'believe' in "facts"? Now what?
ReplyDeleteNot even Bill O'Reilly can explain that. Or something!
Post-truth 2017!
@troll Supreme overlord Putin will sort it all out soon enough.
ReplyDelete@david ITA!! Don't know where the clouds were on New Years eve at midnight. I heard to guns blazing in my neighborhood. When we awoke the next morning there were two bullets, one on my deck the other in my yard....so yes irresponsible gun owners in my area anyway..the police have them as they were collected for evidence..
ReplyDelete*the guns
ReplyDeleteAs a "lawmaker" he should have watched this "Reno 911" video.
ReplyDeletehttp://fansided.com/2014/11/29/reno-911-keep-safe-holidays-video/
Lots of folks in south Texas fire their guns on New Year's Eve. I think it's a cultural thing. Yes, it's stupid, but it's not cowboys, David.
ReplyDeleteSo you're telling me they don't go into outer space????
ReplyDeleteWho says beliefs are as important as facts? They most assuredly are not.
ReplyDeleteWho the hell else is living in south Texas?
ReplyDeleteMexicans.
ReplyDelete