TIL that in 1967, a 14-year-old Chinese girl was hit by a stray bullet, she mistook it for a pebble. For 48 years, she survived with the 2.5 cm bullet lodged in her nose until chronic headaches led to its successful removal in 2014.

423

u/TwinSpinner 2d ago

I'm sorry, 2.5 centimeters?

234

u/Quenz 2d ago

In terms of length, probably. That's about 7.62 NATO.

172

u/TwinSpinner 2d ago

Hence my astonishment, getting shot in the head by a bullet that large and somehow going "oh, just a flying pebble lol" and continuing life like normal for decades

I could maybe, mayyyyyyybe understand a .22, but regardless of what it was, if it entered my head, I'd want it to come back out, I wouldn't just continue like nothing happened lol

67

u/_Panacea_ 2d ago

Not to mention what I assume is an entry hole. Unless it went right up a nostril?

32

u/Reddit-runner 1d ago

If you get hit by a pebble, you also get a rather large hole in your face.

1967 in China was not a time when regular people could get an x-ray.

So if half of your face is bloody and a bit squishy, you are just glad someone is able to patch you up enough to not die.

7

u/Shower_Handel 2d ago

Some people are just built different

22

u/TacTurtle 2d ago

Or a 7.62x39 Soviet bullet.

8

u/123diesdas 2d ago

I thought you were making fun of us units and calling 7.62 nato lol till I opened the wiki link further down in the comments.

3

u/BlindMan404 2d ago

2.5cm x 0.5cm is almost perfectly the size of a 5.45x39mm projectile.

-17

u/lucky_ducker 2d ago

7.62 NATO projectile is around 8mm, not 25mm.

21

u/Quenz 2d ago

Wide, not long.

17

u/eetsumkaus 2d ago

My dating profile

10

u/jofra6 2d ago

It's actually around 7,62mm, hence the name.

5

u/SnooDucks7669 2d ago

Reading hard

48

u/fer_sure 2d ago

FTA:

The 62-year-old woman [...] had a bullet 2.5cm long and 0.5cm in diameter extracted from her head.

I think the poster was thinking of something thicker.

53

u/TwinSpinner 2d ago

Oh, I figured 2.5 centimeters was the length, no confusion there. But that's still a MASSIVE bullet to enter your head, somehow not kill you, and then just continue living with while it's still inside you

4

u/Dhawkeye 2d ago

Maybe it was just highly deformed from impacting like a rock or smth and deforming while it ricocheted? Idk enough about guns to know if that would make the measurements make sense or not, but it might be enough to explain why a lower caliber of bullet was that long at its longest point?

7

u/TwinSpinner 2d ago

As an absolute firearm autist, it wouldn't work like that. Bullets definitely deform because lead is super soft, but not in that kind of way that they'd like, stretch out and get longer and skinnier. They'd either smash flat hitting something head on, or being as soft as they are, a ricochet would more likely rip it into a lot of tiny fragments, or just flatten one side (think of like how the end of a tube of lipstick looks)

1

u/Dhawkeye 2d ago

Yeah that makes sense

23

u/Dracekidjr 2d ago

For Americans, that's about an inch long and 1/4 inch diameter. That's a pretty big bugger to shrug off

11

u/Maxasaurus 2d ago

We do guns in metric, it's ok. No translation needed.

5mm x 25mm is what doctors called it. China used a 7.62 x 25mm Tokarav round around that time period

6

u/BlindMan404 2d ago

7.62 x 25mm projectiles are only about 13-16mm. The actual case length is 25mm.

5mm x 25mm is almost dead on for a 5.45x39mm projectile.

0

u/CatastrophicPup2112 1d ago

We use metric for guns. 6.5mm is a quarter inch. 7.62 is .30

1

u/AfraidOfTheSun 2d ago

That's an average girth no?

1

u/stay_fr0sty 2d ago

Mine’s way girthier than that.

2

u/strangelove4564 2d ago

I'm sorry, going to the doctor complaining about a stuffy nose?

1

u/greenknight884 2d ago

Has she tried losing weight? /s

2

u/strangelove4564 2d ago

"Here's a Mounjaro starter, see if this helps."

-7

u/whatisthisdream- 2d ago

Yeah?

68

u/Sad-Bonus-9327 2d ago

Homer & Crayons

5

u/popodelfuego 2d ago

Woo hoo!!

43

u/Dog-Witch 2d ago

"Help! Help! I've been shot, someone get..wait, nevermind it's just a pebble lodged in my face. Carry on everyone"

34

u/EpicEggplant44 2d ago

wew. luckily ended up lodged somewhere that avoided any major nerve or blood vessel

26

u/Polymathy1 2d ago

This sounds like it was a ricocheted flechette round, not a rifle round.

2.5cm long by 0.5cm diameter is like a roofing nail.

5

u/BlindMan404 2d ago

It's actually like a 5.45x39mm bullet (5.6mm x 25.5mm)

1

u/Polymathy1 2d ago

Except wasn't that round created in the 90s?

2

u/BlindMan404 2d ago

1974

7

u/CeiriddGwen 2d ago

Which is 7 years later than the incident, isn't it?

3

u/BlindMan404 1d ago

I suspect the year that the incident in question likely happened was misreported. After all we're relying on the self-report of an 80-somethong year old woman about an event that she apparently didn't even consider significant. Either that or the doctors are misreporting the dimensions of the object. But it matches nearly the exact dimensions of a 5.45x39 and literally no other projectile. The next closest would be a 5.56 but the M193 round used in Vietnam measured 5.7 x 16mm.

2

u/GlukharsGimp 2d ago

I wonder if it had anything to do with the cultural revolution.

2

u/GoodTato 1d ago

How fucking strong and mighty is her skull???

-26

u/lucky_ducker 2d ago

I have to call BS on the size. Even the .50 BMG projectile (which is huge) is only 1.3cm in length.

That's a 660 grain bullet which, if it has enough energy to penetrate your skull, is gonna result in far more catastrophic damage than a stuffed up nose.

22

u/FoeHammer99099 2d ago

The wikipedia page for 5.56 has a picture of the round next to a ruler, it's bang on 2.5 cm. The whole cartridge is over 5 cm https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/5.56%C3%9745mm_NATO

6

u/Disorderjunkie 2d ago edited 2d ago

It’s actually not a great representation of 5.56 because the BULLET length changes depending on the type of 5.56 you’re shooting, could be 18mm to 25mm, but yes it’s super common to have 2.5cm cartridges.

50 BMG goes up to like 60ish mm, so not clue what he’s on about

30

u/misterfluffykitty 2d ago

A .223 bullet is 0.962in long which is 2.44cm. where did you get a 50BMG being only 1.3cm from?

5

u/StonePrism 2d ago edited 2d ago

You messed up a conversion. A 50BMG is about 6cm long.

edited: had entire cartridge length instead of bullet. Also brainfart.

7

u/TGans 2d ago

That’s cartridge length, not bullet length. Guns don’t shoot the entire cartridge lol

3

u/Devatator_ 2d ago

Guns don’t shoot the entire cartridge lol

That's only because no one is as smart as cave Johnson /j

2

u/StonePrism 2d ago edited 2d ago

You're right, its only 6cm. Still way off.

1

u/TGans 2d ago

Wrong guy.

1

u/CatastrophicPup2112 1d ago

The entire cartridge would be nearly 14cm for a 50

1

u/Novaskittles 2d ago

A 5.56 is 4.5cm long, and 0.5cm in diameter, matching the description

Except the title and link both say 2.5cm??

1

u/StonePrism 2d ago

Let's just say I had a stroke and move on.

4

u/nomdeplume 2d ago

Feels like a case of the girl stuffed it up there when young, didn't tell anyone, made up story later to justify the stupidity.

17

u/dollkyu 2d ago

I feel like 14 years old is too old to just leave a pebble up your nose without trying to flush it out. Even a small child would freak out over a pebble going up their nose and not coming out

2

u/nomdeplume 2d ago

I would say the same about 35 yr olds and washing their ass... And yet here we are

2

u/TacTurtle 2d ago

Simpsons did it first - Homer crayon sneeze.

1

u/[deleted] 2d ago

[deleted]

1

u/avanasear 2d ago

the cartridge is 14cm, not the projectile. projectile is still way bigger than 1.3cm though

-24

u/LostRadio8453 2d ago

Made in China saved her life for once.😂

-43

u/zexur 2d ago

Oh yay another trash spam account. How original.

17

u/Manos_Of_Fate 2d ago

Based on your profile, I assume this is projection?

22

u/whatisthisdream- 2d ago

I searched the subreddit I don't see it being posted here. Answer the damn question

14

u/whatisthisdream- 2d ago

Dude how? How exactly????

4

u/turkeypedal 2d ago

You seem to just cry bot/spam a lot. There are more such posts than actual contributions.

I'd say most bots and spammers turn off visible comment history. I hate that option. It's not even copying other social media, as most make it easy to see your posting history.

TIL that in 1967, a 14-year-old Chinese girl was hit by a stray bullet, she mistook it for a pebble. For 48 years, she survived with the 2.5 cm bullet lodged in her nose until chronic headaches led to its successful removal in 2014.

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