I forgot the date, but he lost his eye
Many years ago, while still in school I had some fascination for guns, together with a friend, P, we played with guns since he had access to a fairly large gun collection, his father had a gun cabinet that we could access. Most of the time we played with bb-guns and .22's.
I got a chunk of steel and had access to a lathe, turned it down for size and bored it out to be 11mm, turned another piece of steal into a mold for 11mm lead bullets. Built a stock and mounted the barrel.
We loaded it up with gun powder from 12-guage shotgun rounds and shot bird shot with it for a while, boom and rattle in the forest. We kept loading with gun powder from just one cartridge .. that was fun for a while.
P wanted more "boom", suggested that we load up with more gun powder from several cartridges, I said that we should rig it up and fire a few shots to test it properly .. we went out to a lake, BBQ-party with some friends.
We rigged up our homemade gun with some rocks, pointing across the lake, first shot wit bird shot hit the water a hundred meters out, P wanted more "bang", emptied three cartridges worth of gun powder into the gun, loaded it with a bullet for the first time. P lit up a cigarette and held the gun in the direction across the lake, lit the powder and waited for the bang.
BOOM! I heard the gun go off, looked across the lake but never saw the bullet splash into the water, it was more than 400 meters across .. In the corner of my eye I saw P slowly turn, with both hands over his face, bleeding. The barrel detached and had flown backwards and hit him in his face, just beneath his right eye .. I tore off my jeans jacket and balled it up and pressed it against his face, our friend K luckily had brought his car and they took off towards the hospital, we were some 25 kilometers out on tiny and narrow dirt roads. K later said that he never drove less than 100km/h the whole way, often more close to 160km/h or above.
P had fractured most of the facial bones on the right side of his face, eye ball punctured and socket fractured. Surgery and long healing process. He was also studying for drivers license and at the same time, hunters permit.
I was in a state of shock and guilt, as I had built the gun. The first days at the hospital was hard, we hung out and talked, P assured me that he didn't blamed me for the accident, that he himself were to blame, that he should have known better. He thanked me for quick thinking and for getting him on his way to the hospital, he was in shock and didn't think clearly. His mom returned the jeans jacket some time later, it looked like she had boiled it in bleach as it had been completely saturated in blood, but when she returned it was just a bit more washed-out blue.
I don't remember it but I had barked out orders to my friends just after the accident, the others just stood around in shock. - "P, Keep pressure on this, don't let go" - "K, The car is too small for us all, you and P go to the hospital" - "Get going, go go go" Me and the other stayed behind and cleaned up and got back home, staying in contact and waited for news about P, late same evening we were reached with the information that he had lost his eye and that he had surgery.
As his right eye was removed, all driving had to be stopped until he had regained some sort of stabilized sight with remaining eye.
All the guns were right-hand, right-eye .. and had to be replaced and re-train on them. P passed on the second examination after we had trained for a few weeks.
A month later P passed drivers test and got his drivers license.
We continued to hang out for a few years, then slowly slid apart as life happened, he met A who had a daughter and started a family, P took over his parents house and are still living in the small village we grew up in. Even the same landline phone number.
..
These events has been resurfacing during the years, we were all about 18 years old when it happened and just started out on life .. now some 30 years later it still influences my life and thoughts. I don't think P has had any larger problems in life from losing and eye, he met a nice lady and started a family, he has been hunting successfully and we have been out shooting shotguns for fun and his aim is as good as anyone else, his work life and jobs has not been affected either as far as I know, he advanced to shift lead in the factory he worked, now at another employer as production engineer.
But this still bothers me from time to time. P lost an eye and about half of his eye sight, from something that I built. I feel guilt, even though P told me not to .. I hope I have learnt something from this, to make me a better human.