Andy Dingley wrote:

On Tue, 18 Jan 2005 09:07:11 GMT, Lobby Dosser
wrote:

This is the second or third time I've seen 'backfiring' mentioned. Does
this mean the nail fired out of other than the head of the nailgun, or
what?

I think it means that the body of the nailgun flew backwards and
socked him in the mush. He knew he'd been hit by it, just didn't
realise it had also fired a nail.

I've not heard enough fact to have a clue as to what actually
happened...the statement he made in the hospital that I saw wasn't even
decipherable as he was obviously still coming out from under sedation.
What I think I heard the news commentator say was that he knew one
nail had fired, but wasn't aware of the second one that got him. (And
implies that one reason he didn't realize he'd been hit was that he saw
one nail go flying so had no reason to think a second was in him. But
that's my interpretation of what I think was said.) As near as I can
tell, the second could (and based on the penetration in the x-ray almost
had to) have been a richocet or at least fired while the gun was a fair
distance from him or it would have pentrated much farther--those suckers
are flying pretty fast when they leave the muzzle. So, my guess is, the
first one caused the kick back which caused an inadvertent second to be
fired which richoceted and got him. May have been a failure of the trip
mechanism, but that has happened to me on the rare occasion...