14 years old and while watching TV while my dad was out working I took his Ruger Blackhawk out of it's sheep skin case and pulled the hammer back. I'm just messing about like a dumb teenager. Suddenly I realized that that I had no way known to me to return it to a safe position. It had a trigger interlock system and by pulling the hammer back the interlock system had gone down into firing position. It was now cocked and ready to fire. WTF? What the hell did I just do? How can I return it to a safe position and get the safety interlock system to come back up to protect the firing pin from accidental discharge. As I stared in horror at what I had done I finally decided to replace it to it's sheep skin case and return it to the shelf I had taken it from. So, I sat there with my brother beside me on the couch to my right pondering my problem. No solution came to mind but I had to do something. If my father found out I would be in serious trouble. I'd only been allowed to fire it once in my father's presence and knew very little of it's function. So, not saying anything to my older brother I took down the case once more and carefully unzipped it. The heavy revolver slid out and landed on the floor hammer first. It went off. A huge blast of flame shot up past the right side of my face. I was so glad nothing had happened to me. So lucky. Then I noticed the tear in the right thigh of my pants. "Oh" I thought, well, thankfully it had only ripped my pants. Looking closer I saw a bit of blood. So it's just a scratch I thought. Maybe just a light graze? Then pulled the rip open a bit and saw a gaping hole down into the meat of my thigh. "Oh shit, oh damn, I'm really in trouble" I thought. My brother looked over and said, "What did you do!!!???". Me: " I shot myself". I was in a state of shock. He offered to load me up on his motorcycle and take me to hospital. There was a chance we could keep this quiet and get me out of trouble and I jumped up at the chance and followed him out the door. As I stepped out the door a large hamburger glob of meat squirted out the back of my leg with all wet and bloody. It was surreal. Still, I felt no pain at all, not even a small sensation. How odd was that. Not at all like the movies where the people cry out in pain and agony straight away. As I got on the back of his motorbike I felt a bit woozy. I told my brother I might fall off and get really injured, I was scared. In reality, I would have been fine as there was very little bleeding, just a bit of blood ooze but being scared I got off and laid down on the ground and waited till the came back a half hour later with my grandmother and her station wagon. In the meantime a neighbor came over and asked me if I was alright. I was angry and told him "Ya, I'm fine, I like to lay about bleeding man. If you can't help me get lost!". I'm surprised he didn't kick me for that but he calmly walked off to leave me to it. In the hospital after laying about on a gurney for about an hour my grandmother gave them permission to use me for education purposes. They split open the wound from entry to exit to show off the fantastic trajectory of the .44 magnum hollow point and the damage it left. Then the stuffed it with gauze or some sort of packing material and let me be for a day or so. When next a group of medical students showed up with a couple doctors they just ripped that gauze out with no pain killers at all. I'm gonna tell you, it was the most horrific pain I have ever had in my life. Nothing compares to it, not even having a root canal with no anesthetics and I've been through that also. Don't ask me how that happened, because it's inconceivable that the dentist wouldn't realize she totally missed my nerve and went ahead anyway the whole time telling me it doesn't hurt. Anyway, other than the severed nerves, my leg healed up fairly well and I have a lovely scar and a huge dent in my leg to this day to remind me why fire arm safety is important and why you shouldn't handle a weapon you know nothing about.