Woman wanting medical help shoots self

Let me first say I'm all for helping someone that will help themselves. Watch this video interview and take notice at 1:27 mins into the video this lady is holding a cigarette.

Since the new tax on tobacco has taken place a pack of cigarettes in Michigan cost around $6.50 per pack, so I'm just guessing here that cigarettes in Michigan would cost $60.00+ per carton. The average smoker will smoke a carton per week so that's over $3000.00 per year.

I say this lady needs to stop crying for a handout, quit smoking and sell that pistol to help pay her medical bills. She could afford a nice medical insurance policy with the 3 grand she'd save from the cigarettes alone.

NILES, Mich. (WOOD) - The pain in her right shoulder was unbearable and, without health insurance, Kathy Myers was desperate.

So, she sought .25-caliber relief.

In her basement bedroom on Thursday, the 41-year-old woman shot herself in the same shoulder with a .25-caliber handgun, hoping it could get her the medical help she said she needs.

Instead, she's back home, still in pain, and could face criminal charges.

Myers showed 24 Hour News 8 how she did it. She was lying in her bed in the basement, put pillows in front of and behind her right shoulder, along with an ice pack. Then, she fired a single shot through the front pillow.

The bullet pierced the front of her shoulder and exited the rear, lodging in the ice pack. She said she didn't feel any pain, just burning.

"It just felt warm. That's all," she said.

Myers, 41, said she told her girlfriend's mother to call 911.

Myers said she hurt her shoulder about a month ago when her 80-pound golden Labrador went after one of her little dogs. She tried to stop the dog, which jerked her right shoulder.

"I felt it pop in three places in my collar bone," she said.

Doctors gave her some anti-inflammatories, but couldn't do much more than that, she said. "I didn't have insurance, so I couldn't get a CT-scan or MRI."

Myers is among the 1.2 million uninsured people living in Michigan -- a number that has remained steady for about three years, state health officials said.

The pain, she says, is so excruciating that she can't sleep. She said she couldn't afford to see a neurologist. Myers says she lost her job with a hazardous-waste removal company in southern Indiana months ago.

She said she hasn't qualified for disability or Medicaid.

It was Thursday, she said, when she came up with the idea of shooting herself. "I figured if I did something that would not necessarily make it life-threatening but make it imminent danger that something would be done," she said. "I wanted them to fix me. I just wanted to be fixed."

She hoped the bullet would force doctors to treat what she believes is a rotator cuff injury. Instead, emergency room doctors at Lakeland Hospital treated only the bullet wound and sent her home.

On Friday, Niles Police said they would talk to prosecutors to determine what, if any, charges to file against Myers.

Now, she's having second thoughts.

"It didn't take the pain away," she said. "I figured it would take the pain away from the rotator cuff, where at least I could focus on something else, and maybe they would fix me, you know. I guess I should have shot a little lower and got the bone and the artery."

VIA: WoodTV.com