A South Carolina fire chief caught up in a scuffle for a gun had a close shave when a ricocheted bullet hit a DVD in his jacket pocket, saving him from a slug in the guts.

Barry McRoy, director of Colleton County's Fire and Rescue Department, had popped into Walterboro Waffle House early on Saturday morning after helping put out a house fire. At around 6am he got up to leave and, as the Charleston Post Courier explains, had just opened the door of the door of the glass lobby for another customer when two men ran inside, knocking them both against the glass.

The two men were fighting over something, but McRoy said he "never had a chance to react and never saw the gun until it discharged". He said: "I just heard the bang."

The bullet grazed the head of one of the fighting pair, "shattered a window, then ricocheted into McRoy's abdomen". He recounted: "I felt something like being hit in the stomach and assumed it was the percussion from the discharged firearm."

McRoy didn't realise his DVD had taken a hit until he put his hand in his jacket pocket and "pulled out a handful of shattered plastic" and a fragment of the bullet. He joked: "I'm sure a bullet to the stomach would have hurt."

The wounded man, a "known gang member", was subsequently charged with "two counts of assault and battery with intent to kill and other gun-related charges". His unharmed co-belligerent, who was evidently simply trying to relieve the perp of his firearm, was not charged.

And yes, we know what you're thinking: nice story, but what was the DVD? Well, for the record, it was "a gift from an employee who had recorded a TV show about fire extinguishers". It did not survive the ordeal. ®

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