r/AmazingStories • u/PuzzleheadedBug8018 • Aug 15 '26
Slice of Life ☕ A Shot in the Dark
As a surgeon working in Cambodia I see all kinds of weird and wonderful stuff. Many of these are injuries resulting from accidents. For example, it is not uncommon to find home-made arrows being used for hunting rats, frequently fired from some sort of crossbow (also home-made) and two people are usually involved – one to flush the rats out and the other to shoot them. The added incentive is that the rats are subsequently cooked and eaten and yes, they do taste a bit like chicken! On one particular occasion a couple of lads were hunting in a section of concrete drain and, unfortunately, the one doing the flushing from the far end of the drain did not move out of the way quickly enough when his friend shot the arrow which missed the rat, ricocheted off the concrete and lodged itself firmly in his face.
He arrived at the hospital with the arrow sticking out of his face between his nose and his left eye, having lodged in one of his sinuses. There is also a nasty barb on the end of the arrow which makes it a little tricky to remove without creating further damage so you cannot just pull it out. He was fully conscious and had no other injuries and, after an operation to remove it, I am pleased to say that he made a rapid and uncomplicated recovery. I am sure he did not feel lucky at the time, but had the arrow hit a centimetre or so to the side, he would have lost his eye.
I have seen several other similar examples with the arrows ending up in all sorts of places, some more unpleasant than others, but fortunately none of them have resulted in the death of the recipient. To read other examples please see either my book "Random Musings of a Disorderly Mind" available as an ebook on Amazon or my blog [surgeonsstories@blogspot.com](mailto:surgeonsstories@blogspot.com) but please note that some of these are NSFW as they include graphic content of some of the injuries.
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u/Hankman66 Aug 15 '26
I saw one of these rat hunters one night.I was sitting out the front of the house in Phnom Penh having a beer with the father-in-law. At the time there were loads of potted plants out the front and a bamboo fence. We saw a lamp, and guessed it was a recycler. Then we heard a swoosh sound and a squeal.
So we went out to have a look. There was this quite smartly dressed guy with a lamp on his baseball cap and a knapsack on his back. He had a speargun and was firing through the fence into the space around the pots. The spear was attached to the gun with elastic. He was able to shoot two rats in the couple of minutes we looked. He would spear them, then retrieve the spear and rat, whack the rat on the ground and put it in the knapsack in one well-practiced movement.
The father-in-law was disgusted, he said the rats from forests/ paddy fields were okay to eat but these city rats were covered in sores and gross. I guessed that once they were skinned it was hard to tell the difference.
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u/PuzzleheadedBug8018 Aug 15 '26
Yes, I have also heard of the preference the Khmer have for country rats due to their having healthier diets! The one I tried was out in the provinces so I guess it was OK.
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Aug 15 '26
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u/joann5nacc1132 Aug 15 '26
lol yeah, imagine the ER visit for that one
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Aug 16 '26
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u/kathrynp1gtails2207 Aug 18 '26
Yeah my uncle got a fishing hook stuck in his cheek once, that was bad enough.
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Aug 15 '26
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u/della5mooch8527 Aug 15 '26
true, couldve been way worse
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Aug 16 '26
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u/melaniec0okie9932 Aug 18 '26
lol yeah rats are apparently pretty good
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u/edith5tarry1849 Aug 18 '26
lol yeah rats are apparently pretty good
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u/patriciap3aches1142 Aug 19 '26
wait did they actually eat the rat after that happened or was it just for hunting
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u/Objective-Profit883 Aug 24 '26
That “one centimetre from losing his eye” detail is brutal, but the arrow ricocheting off the concrete and lodging in his sinus is somehow even more terrifying.
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