PORT ST. LUCIE, Florida -- A teenager is recovering after police say he shot himself in the penis and testicle while cleaning a gun he just bought. It happened Thursday morning at a home on the 200 block of Verada Street in Port St. Lucie. Police say 18-year-old Michael Smeriglio first lied to police saying someone shot him while he was walking down the street. After being questioned by police he admitted to accidentally doing it himself. Doctors say the bullet went through his penis, his left testicle and then lodged itself in his thigh. Smeriglio told police he bought the gun last month at a party. While police were investigating at the home where it happened, they discovered marijuana in the house. That led to the arrest of the homeowner Joseph Lamar James, 22, on drug charges.
He's lucky to be alive. If the round had bisected his femoral artery, he would have had about two minutes to regret his negligence.
I still remember my Dad's rule from around age 5: Never point the barrel of a gun at anything you wouldn't mind seeing blown apart.
in the words of forest gump --stupid is stupid does --i never,never,never even try to clean my guns until i know beyond a shadow of doubt the are empty of ANY ammo------jump in the gene pool is clean for NOW
Naw, stupid shouldn't hurt. Stupid should make you ugly, because ugly folk are less likely to reproduce. (of course, in this case, I think he has that part covered too.
Agreed. A LEO friend once told me almost all "gun cleaning accidents" he investigated were either negligent playing with guns, assault, or suicide. Even the "my three year old found it under our mattress and accidentally shot mommy. ". In fact he could not remember in 20+ years an actual gun cleaning incident. This one sounds like shoving it down the waistband was not well executed.
That was my thought also.. I just couldn't figure out a way to tactfully say it for mixed company as you did.
You haven't been to my neck of the woods have ya.... I'm starting to think the ugly gene is linked to the uber-fertile gene.
No, that would be the goober, no taste in clothing gene, not the I look like a human gofer gene. The first one is a choice, The second shows God has a sense of humor.
I am going to wager that he was tucking the gun in his waist-band and gangsta-drawing and just didn't think about having his finger on the trigger. Personally, this one is one of the ones that make me smile.
