The Bullet That Vanished in the Hospital
A loaded .22 goes off in a Newport hospital room, and the bullet disappears—X-rays suggest Mrs. France swallowed it.
Saturday evening at the Vane Hospital occurred the accidental shooting of Mrs. L. H. France, another case of careless handling of a weapon.
Mrs. France is the wife of a Spokane traveling salesman, who has been at the hospital the past six weeks suffering from the results of a paralytic stroke. She has been in attendance on him for some time. Saturday evening a young man named Brandt was visiting the couple in their room. He had been preparing to go out in the woods Sunday and had with him a .22 special rifle, and while with them loaded the magazine. Later he extracted the cartridges and thought he had them all out. He snapped the trigger a number of times, pointing the gun at the floor without discharging it. In answer to some remark of the woman he pointed the gun at her and it was discharged, the bullet striking her in the cheek and going back into the neck.
Being unable to locate the bullet, Dr. Phillips took the woman to a Spokane hospital Sunday morning. An X-ray examination failed to discover the bullet, and it is thought that striking the teeth it lost its force and that the woman swallowed it, as it cannot be located in her neck and there is no trace of a wound in the rear of the tonsils. She is rapidly recovering.
“An X-ray examination failed to discover the bullet and it is thought that striking the teeth it lost its force and that the woman swallowed it, as it cannot be located in her neck and there is no trace of a wound in the rear of the tonsils.”
Firearm accidents in hospitals are rare, but the story is a reminder that “unloaded” guns have long been a dangerous fiction. The missing bullet also shows how early X-ray technology could turn a wound into a medical mystery.
From readers
No comments yet. If you know something about this story — a correction, a family memory, a source — it belongs here.