You really can’t make this stuff up.
A former Vietnam War Marine was shot in the hip while guarding Sea turtle nests on a south Florida beach. The incident occurred on a beach in Lauderdale-by-the-Sea, when 72-year-old Stan Pannaman was approached by 38-year-old Michael Q. McCauliffe, 38, who first proceeded to curse at Pannanman and another friend for their work of protecting Sea turtles.
There was a fight, and Pannaman was shot.
Here is more of the story:take our poll - story continues belowDo you think the 2nd Amendment will be destroyed by the Biden Administration?(2)
Completing this poll grants you access to Shark Tank updates free of charge. You may opt out at anytime. You also agree to this site's Privacy Policy and Terms of Use.“After he shot me, the guy looked like he was in shock. He looked very, very surprised. He actually headed toward me and said, ‘How are you? Are you OK?’
“Sir, you shot me. How could I be OK?” Pannaman replied.
The surreal scene played out about 11 p.m. Friday when Pannaman and a friend, South Florida Audubon Society president Doug Young, set off to monitor turtle nest sites near 3900 El Mar Drive.
At the entrance to the beach, the pair were confronted by a man who began cursing them, saying, “I hate sea turtle people. You’re all f—ing crazy,” said Pannaman.
ignore the man — later identified by sheriff’s deputies as Michael Q. McAuliffe, 38 — Pannaman and Young walked to another part of the beach. But McAuliffe approached, Pannaman said, and began screaming as he yanked up stakes and tore down yellow tape from around a nest site.
Pannaman said he saw McAuliffe take a swing at Young, 64. “Then he started coming at me,” said Pannaman, a retired salesman from Manhattan who is classified as fully disabled and walks with a cane. “That’s when I pulled a handgun from the pocket of my shorts.”
Pannaman said he did not point the gun — a .32 caliber Kel-Tec pistol — directly at his assailant, but turned so the man could see it. “He stopped,” said Pannaman. “I thought I had diffused the situation.”But seconds after Pannaman put the gun back in his pocket, McAuliffe “lunged at me, grabbed me and threw me down onto the sand,” he said.
As they wrestled, McAuliffe hit him in the face and gouged his head, Pannaman said. “I saw stars for a few minutes,” he said.
When McAuliffe got hold of the pistol, he stood up, Pannaman said, and declared, “I’m going to shoot you with your flare gun.”
“Sir,” Pannaman said, “it’s not a flare gun. It’s a real gun.”
Thinking McAuliffe was about to pull the trigger, Pannaman said he “spun to get out of the way,” and a bullet hit him in the left hip.Pannaman will have surgery in 4 weeks to remove the bullet that is lodged in his butt. As far as McCauliffe, well, he will be spending many moons in jail.