National Shooter Who Lost Thumb In Freak Mishap Might Have To Compete In Para Category

Injured national-level shooter Pushpender might be staring at a bleak future, or possibly competing in the para category after suffering grievous injuries to his left thumb in a freak mishap while filling his air pistol cylinder with compressed air. Pushpender, 31, was training at a private shooting range in Greenfield, Faridabad on December 2 for the National championships in Bhopal when the pistol's gas cylinder exploded when he was refilling it from the main cylinder, resulting in half of his left thumb getting "completely smashed".

"There is no possibility of reconstruction of the thumb as it has got smashed completely," Pushpender told PTI on Wednesday, exactly 10 days after he underwent a four-hour surgery at the Army's R&R Hospital here.

"The thumb cannot be reconstructed. It got smashed completely. Had it been a knife injury or an injury caused by a sharp-edged object, the thumb could have been reconstructed but, in my case, it is damaged beyond repair, crushed," said the Indian Air Force (IAF) corporal.

The incident happened on that fateful day on December 2 when he was trying to put the overwhelming memory of the demise of his mother on November 2 to Stage 4 brain cancer and severe damage to the liver, at the back of his mind and concentrate on training for the nationals just a couple of days away in Bhopal.

"I was re-filling my 10m air pistol cylinder from the main cylinder. I had filled up my first pistol cylinder without any issues. But when I was unscrewing the second cylinder from the main cylinder it exploded, ripping off half my left thumb," added Pushpender, describing the incident.

"I have cried enough. Lost my father in 2014, my mother on November 2 this year and a month later my left thumb. God is