I was driving through the Memphis area on the way home to Louisiana last week when I received a rather frantic call from my hunting and shooting buddy in Monroe. He said he'd had an accident while reloading, and would I take him to the hospital....of course I couldn't but he found another friend to take him. When I asked him a few days ago why he hadn't call 911, he said that all things considered, he didn't think his condition warranted it. When I spoke with him later that day I learned that while priming cases a primer had detonated, and in turn exploded 44 more primers which were in the plastic dish. He was using a Hornady unit:
The explosion blew his right thumb off, and he could see the bone sticking out. His hands were burnt, but otherwise he was OK. The docs at the ER re-attached his thumb but said he probably would not have any kind of thumbnail when all was said an done. Here are a couple of pics:
He knows he was very fortunate....it could have been a whole lot worse! He was not wearing safety glasses.
I've been a serious reloader for over 30 years, and while generally aware of some potential risks, have been very fortunate...so far. I've used a lot of different priming tools over the years, but for the last several I've been using one of these "one at a time" tools from 21st Century Shooting. It's slow, but it works well for me.
I'm posting just as a reminder of what can go wrong when we least expect it.
George