Photo: John and Angie Lamb. Photo: Courtesy Ozark County Times
A rifle accident on the opening day of firearms deer season has left one Ozark County woman without a foot and a family looking for answers.
The Ozark County Times reports Bakersfield resident Angie Lamb hadn’t even made it to her deer stand Saturday morning, Nov. 16, when her Remington 700 series rifle fired, without the woman touching the trigger.
Lamb says her husband, John, was driving her to her deer stand that morning so she wouldn’t have to walk so far.
Lamb says she has always been careful with guns, adding, “The barrel was pointing to the ground like it should, and the safety was on.”
Lamb said her finger wasn’t on the trigger when the barrel of the rifle bumped the dashboard and fired. She says, “I remember hearing the loud noise, and I asked my husband, ‘Why didn’t you have the safety on?’ He looked at the gun and said the safety is on.”
Lamb says, “We had not realized at that point I had been shot.”
The Bakersfield woman says she then looked down and saw her foot was gone.
Lamb is a registered nurse. She called 911 and put the dispatcher on speaker while her husband drove to meet the ambulance. She says, “I could feel myself going into shock, which was something I was worried about.”
When the couple arrived at the gas station in South Fork, two Missouri Department of Conservation agents were there conducting testing for chronic wasting disease.
Lamb says one of the agents jumped up. She says, “I was starting to lose consciousness. He grabbed my face and basically brought me back. He was a great source of comfort.”
When the ambulance arrived, she was transported to Cox Medical Center South in Springfield.
Lamb says, medical personnel were able to put her foot back together long enough for her to decide whether to keep it.
Lamb said she knew the foot would never be usable, so she made the decision to amputate, with the surgery done the next day.
The Ozark County woman is undergoing physical therapy in a Springfield rehabilitation facility.
A benefit auction for the Lambs is planned for 6 p.m. Saturday, Dec. 7, in the Bakersfield School gymnasium.
Unknown at the time to Lamb and her family, accidental discharges by the Remington 700 series rifle have been linked to at least two dozen deaths and more than 100 serious injuries, according to online sources. Lawsuits filed against the company cite guns firing without the trigger being touched.
In 2015 and 2016, the company issued a voluntary recall of certain serial numbers and carried out a campaign to notify the public of a trigger replacement offer. In March 2017, a judgment was made against Remington in a class action lawsuit that alleged the guns can fire without the trigger being pulled.
Lamb says, “We knew about the recall of some of the Remington guns but the serial number of my gun was not within the recall.” She says they have since found out the model she owns also has a history of misfiring and injuring people. Lamb says, “We didn’t have a clue about that until someone brought us an article on it.”
Lamb said right now she and her family are focusing on her recovery, but they will be in contact with Remington about the incident.
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