HOT LEAD - POTBELLY STOVE 'SHOOTS' WOMAN

  • Published
  • By Tim Barela
SEKIU, Wash. --  A 56-year-old woman here "accused" a cast-iron potbelly stove of "shooting" her in the leg Oct. 5.

Cory Davis told the Peninsula Daily News that she had just finished stoking the fire in the stove she used to heat her home when something inside it suddenly exploded.

She heard a firecracker-like bang, and then felt something strike her on the inside of her left calf.

"I kept thinking, 'Geeze, that was one fast hot coal flying at me,' " she told the Daily News.

But it turns out, the projectile that led to the stinging pain and bleeding in her leg wasn't a chunk of hot coal at all.

It was "hot lead!"

A .22-caliber rifle bullet to be exact.

Davis reported that a case of ammo had spilled in her home, nearly a month before. She thought she had recovered all the ammunition, but it appears one of the cartridges had fallen into the newspaper she used to light the fire in the stove. It stayed hidden there until she accidentally placed it in the stove, along with a handful of newspaper.

The heat from the flames caused the cartridge to explode, and, "Of course, it got me," she said.

According to the Clallam County Sheriff's Department, Davis said she removed the metal fragment from her injured limb early in the morning on the day of the mishap. She went to the Forks Community Hospital the next day, where a doctor cleaned the shallow wound and gave her a tetanus shot. Davis must have done a good job removing the slug fragment from her own calf, as the doctor found no other remnants of the bullet and released her later that same day.

Nevertheless, the hospital contacted the sheriff's department because the doctor was concerned the bullet may have been discharged from a firearm, a spokesman for the sheriff's department said. Ultimately, the police declared it an unfortunate accident.

The Daily News reported that a similar incident injured a hunter several years ago. In that case, ammunition had fallen into a fire while the hunters were sleeping. One of the hunters was hit in the leg.

Despite her aching leg, Davis told the Daily News she has managed to see the humor in it all.

"How many people get shot by (their) stove?" she said, laughing.

No charges were filed against the stove.

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NOTE: Information accumulated from interviews and staff and wire reports