Whenever you do any kind of activity that could possibly be life threatening then there are always hours and hours of safety briefings to ensure that you know all the dangers associated with it, but there’s always one idiot that manages to screw it up as well.

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This time, the mistake very nearly did cause the guy in question to lose his life as he ended up unloading a speargun into his head, only missing his brain by the merest of centimetres. Pastor Connie Hallowell from Umkomaas in South Africa was picking up fishing sinkers near Scottburgh Beach when the weapon accidentally unloaded and went through his face, coming to a stop just before his eyebrows.

Incredibly, Connie didn’t lose his eyesight and was able to crawl towards the nearest beach where a local held it in place whilst another used an angle grinder to shorten it. He was then airlifted to hospital in St Anne’s in Pietermaritzburg where he was able to have the spear removed from his face. Miraculously he’s made a full recovery.

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Damn talk about lucky. That spear looks like it literally went through the only parts of his face that wouldn’t have completely screwed up his eyesight or his face or killed him. Gotta be a one in a million escape, if not higher. Incredibly fortunate.

We’ve really gotta ask what was going on with his gun though because surely if it did malfunction and fire in his face then he needs to sue whoever made it and get fairly compensated for almost losing his life and going through that horrific experience. Seems kinda weird he would be holding it in that position though don’t you think? Kinda a weird position to be holding it in because surely you’d be holding it down unless you were aiming it at something? Just saying.

EDIT – OK since I wrote this a guy named Merik Sparg has written in to say that a lot of what I’ve written was complete bullshit. Here’s the takeaway from it:

• Guy wasn’t scuba diving he was spearfishing. He was a spearfished not a scuba diver.
• Calling him an idiot for not following safety precautions is highly presumptuous and disrespectful
• He had placed the gun down whilst getting the sinkers and a strong swell caused the gun to hit some reef which caused the malfunction.
• Lastly as a complete accident, it is not at all the manufacturers fault for such an issue, specially if it could be from wear and tear.
• Nobody I hope is foolish enough to point a loaded speargun at their head, not to mention most guns are too long to do this.

Not sure how accurate that all is but I’m more than willing to add it to this article so that all the ‘facts’ are out there and you can make your own mind up. Kinda crazy that a gun can accidentally go off like that, but Merik clearly knows more than me so happy to defer to his judgment and apologise to Connie for anything disrespectful I might have said or implied about him. Sorry.

For more of the same, check out this fishing expedition that went drastically wrong as well. Even worse than this one, seriously.