Natural selection at work, hilarity ensues

[YellowMaranello]

http://www.dfw.com/mld/startelegram/...al/5645241.htm

FORT WORTH - A Denton teen-ager was blinded this weekend and faces reconstructive surgery because a toy gun he was playing with shot a frog into his face.

Daniel Berry, 17, was looking down the barrel of a "potato gun" when it went off, his parents, Lisa and Clifford Berry, said at an afternoon news conference at John Peter Smith Hospital.

Berry is in serious condition at the hospital, and doctors have talked to the teen's parents about fitting him with prosthetic eyes, the Berrys said.

"The frog hit him with a force more than a gun," Lisa Berry, 41, said. "If it had been a potato or a rock, it would have killed him. It would have blown the top of his head off."

A potato gun is a device with a tube such as plastic water pipe, a combustion chamber and an igniter. Projectiles such as potatoes can be loaded into the tube and fired several hundred feet when a propellant such as hairspray is ignited in the chamber.

Berry and some friends were fishing at Hickory Creek in Copper Canyon about 1 a.m. Sunday when they saw three other teen-agers with the potato gun, said Kevin Patton, a Denton County sheriff's spokesman.

"They were shooting potatoes, then one of them got the idea to shoot frogs out of it," Patton said.

The gun, which the teens bought on the Internet, began to misfire.

"Daniel Berry walked over to see if he could help," Patton said. "Curiosity got to him, I guess. The frog hit him square in the face. He suffered several facial fractures."

Clifford Berry, 59, said his younger son, C.W., was with Daniel when the accident occurred. "He held him in his arms all the way from the creek bank to the hospital in Denton," Clifford Berry said.

Daniel Berry was eventually flown to JPS by helicopter ambulance.

Lisa Berry said that the force of the blast blew off her son's eyelids.

"If he cries, it burns his eyes," she said. "I never thought any toy a child could order would wound my child like that."

The Texas Penal Code classifies potato guns as "zip guns," and they are considered illegal weapons, a spokeswoman for the Department of Public Safety said.

Patton said the case was reviewed by the Denton County district attorney's office. "There are not going to be charges filed at this time," he said. "It's just a very unfortunate accident."

Daniel Berry told his parents he wants to continue his college education.

"We've been telling him we're going to do the best for him," Lisa Berry said. "He can still be a man, he can still be independent with this disability."

And he didn't even make his own potato gun, he had to order a pre-made one.... Some people

[Oz]

Poor asshole. And what a stupid mother! Toy's kids could buy... - IT WAS A FRIGGING ILLEGAL WEAPON PURCHASED ILLEGALLY OVER THE INTERNET!

[TexasF355F1]

Sux for that kid, but I'm still trying to figure out how it accidently went off?...maybe the frog farted and lit the fumes. I don't see why a potato gun is illegal, those things are fu*kin' fun as hell! I use to have one and used it all the time, good thing i didn't get caught

[taranaki]

Originally posted by TexasF355F1
I don't see why a potato gun is illegal,

Well if you can't figure it out from the text of the article,you never will.

[Sean]

its to prevent more stupid kids from blinding themselves.

sadly though, this probably isn't the first incident where someone was blinded by a non poisonus frog

[Steel]

That's why one does not make potato guns out of plastic, and why one does not look down the end when loaded and both ends not open.

<sigh> potato gun newbies.