Tim Sheehy, a former Navy SEAL running for a Senate seat in Montana, said he lied about illegally discharging a weapon in Glacier National Park to cover up a gunshot wound he received in Afghanistan.
Sheehy first told a park ranger that he accidentally discharged a weapon and killed himself while hiking with his family in the park in 2015, according to reports obtained by The Washington Post.
The 38-year-old candidate now claims he fabricated the story because he feared the ranger would report the gunshot wound to the military, which could lead to an investigation and damage his teammates’ reputations.
At a campaign event in December, Sheehy was filmed saying, “I have thick skin, even though it’s not thick enough.” I still have a bullet stuck in this arm from Afghanistan.
Sheehy was endorsed by former President Donald Trump as the candidate “best positioned” to defeat incumbent Senate Democrat Jon Tester.
Tim Sheehy, a former Navy SEAL running for a Senate seat in Montana, said he lied about illegally discharging a weapon in Glacier National Park to cover up a gunshot wound he received in Afghanistan.
He said he did not know for sure whether the arm injury was the result of friendly fire between former platoon mates or an enemy and that he never reported it to his superiors.
He has provided various conflicting accounts of the gunshot wounds he suffered during speeches, campaign events and in his 2023 memoir “Mudslingers,” as reported by the Post.
According to a ticket obtained by the outlet, Sheehy told the ranger he had the equipment in the back of his vehicle when his long Colt .45 revolver slid into the pile of equipment.
The gun hit the ground and accidentally hit his right forearm, according to Sheehy, but the bullet did not pass through. He paid a $525 fine for illegally discharging a weapon in Glacier National Park.
The ranger, who spoke with Sheehy at a hospital in Kalispell, Mont., recalled the Senate candidate saying he was relieved the bullet did not hit his wife or young children.
Doctors decided to leave the bullet in Sheehy’s arm, before he paid the fine and got his gun back, according to the ranger, who was interviewed by the Post on condition of anonymity.
Sheehy said he made up the story to cover up the gunshot wound he never reported to his superiors while serving in Afghanistan.
In his final account of the incident, he slipped on ice while hiking in Glacier National Park and fell on sharp rocks.
His arm was hit and he feared he had broken his arm and that the bullet from years earlier might have been dislodged.
Sheehy has provided various conflicting accounts about the injury to his right forearm during speeches, campaign events and in his 2023 memoir “Mudslingers,” as reported by the Post.
Sheehy (pictured with his wife) first told a park ranger that he accidentally discharged a weapon and killed himself while hiking with his family in the park in 2015.
When he arrived at the hospital, he said he had already had an injury to his arm, but “he didn’t tell them the whole story because I had just gone to the emergency room,” he said. -he declares.
He remembers telling the staff, “You know, I hurt my arm. You know, there’s a gunshot wound in there. …I just have to take a look and make sure everything is okay.
Hospital staff informed him that they were required to report all gunshot wounds to law enforcement, Sheehy said.
Sheehy feared the ranger would report him to the Navy if he told him the truth, which could lead to an investigation. As a result, he decided to fabricate a story about how he had been shot.
But Sheehy may have already made up the story and told hospital staff about it before the ranger arrived, according to Sheehy’s attorney, Daniel Watkins.
‘Mr. Sheehy attempted to explain that the injury was not recent, but they were told they had to report it regardless,” the agent wrote in a letter, adding that Sheehy told hospital staff that he had fired his gun in the park.
Neither Sheehy nor his attorney would say what account was provided to the medical professional who examined his injury.
At the time, Sheehy was still in the Naval Reserve and several of his former teammates were still serving, he said.
A military investigation could potentially lead to Sheehy being recalled to active duty and even facing a court martial. The entire team could be “dragged through the mud”.
The ranger was surprised by Sheehy’s claims that the story was made up. He recalled checking the gun in Sheehy’s vehicle and discovering it fully loaded but with one bullet missing.
Sheehy’s attorney said the ranger’s account was “a fabrication,” but Sheehy noted, “Everything he says is true to the best of his knowledge.”
Watkins said Sheehy could not have accidentally dropped the weapon because “that is not possible due to the design of the weapon’s firing mechanism.”
Rick Vasquez, former Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF) official and firearms expert, agreed that it would be “highly unlikely” that this weapon would misfire when accidentally let go, as Sheehy had told the ranger.
It is still unclear how many times, in which parts of his body, under what circumstances and by whom Sheehy was shot.
The Senate candidate said he was shot three times during a presentation at Billings Clinic Hospital in 2022.
“I was injured about seven times, by IEDs, and I was shot three times on different occasions, in different places on my body.”
In a section of his book “Mudslingers: A True Story of Aerial Firefighting” published in December last year, he said he was shot several times.
But later in the book, he writes that there was only one time his body “was hit by a bullet” while supplying local Afghan troops.
It is still unclear how many times, in which parts of his body, under what circumstances and by whom Sheehy was shot.
Sheehy was endorsed by former President Donald Trump as the candidate “best positioned” to defeat incumbent Senate Democrat Jon Tester.
He thought he had hit a rock with his arm, but felt “quite sore” when he returned to base, as he wrote: “I later learned there was a bullet in my arm! Besides, he is still there today.
In another chapter, he said he was hit “by a ricocheted friendly bullet” but did not report the shooter, who is “a total stud who went on to a successful career as a SEAL.”
In this week’s interview with the Post, Sheehy said the night patrol and friendly fire referred to the same event.
But contrary to what he wrote in the book, Sheehy said he couldn’t figure out who shot him because the night was “chaotic,” although he thinks it was someone from his team.
“To be very clear, I don’t know where the bullet came from. Sometimes people have a hard time believing this, but in Hollywood it seems like it’s a shootout, everyone knows exactly what’s happening. … That’s just not how it happens,” he said.
He said reporting the gunshot wound would have led to a “thorough investigation” by NCIS – Naval Criminal Investigative Service.
He added that in Afghanistan he was hit by two bullets in total, saying: “I was not injured, but I was… technically hit by another bullet in a separate incident,” he said. he declared.
Katie Martin, his campaign spokeswoman, said Sheehy was shot three times, with the third bullet hitting his radio which was on his body.
The X-ray of Sheehy’s arm provided to the Post indeed shows a circular object lodged in his right forearm, as reported by the media.
Joseph V. Sakran, a trauma surgeon at Johns Hopkins Hospital, said it is impossible to determine what type of weapon caused the injury and how old the injury is.
Thomas J. Esposito, a professor at the University of Illinois College of Medicine in Peoria, said it was “doubtful” that the wound was from a ricocheted bullet because of “the softness of its edges.”
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