Tim Sheehy, a former Navy SEAL running for a Senate seat in Montana, said he lied about illegally firing a gun in Glacier National Park to cover up a gunshot wound he received in Afghanistan.
Sheehy initially told a park ranger that he accidentally discharged a gun and shot himself while walking with his family in the park in 2015, reports obtained by Washington Post sample.
The 38-year-old candidate has now claimed he made up the story because he feared the ranger would report the gunshot wound to the military, which could lead to an investigation and damage the reputation of his teammates.
During a campaign event in December, Sheehy was caught on camera saying, “I have thick skin, although it’s not thick enough.” I still have a bullet stuck in this arm from Afghanistan.
Sheehy has been endorsed by former President Donald Trump as the candidate “best positioned” to defeat incumbent Senate Democrat Jon Tester.
Tim Sheehy, a former Navy SEAL who is running for a Senate seat in Montana, said he lied about illegally firing a gun in Glacier National Park to cover a gunshot wound he received in Afghanistan.
He said he is not sure whether the wound on his arm was due to friendly fire between former platoon mates or an enemy and he never reported it to his superiors.
He has provided several conflicting accounts about the gunshot wounds he suffered during speeches, campaign events and in his 2023 memoir, ‘Mudslingers,’ the Post reported.
According to a ticket obtained by the outlet, Sheehy told the ranger he was placing equipment in the back of his vehicle when his Colt .45 long revolver slid across the pile of equipment.
The gun hit the ground and accidentally shot him in the right forearm, according to Sheehy, but the bullet missed. He paid a $525 fine for illegally firing a gun in Glacier National Park.
The Ranger, who spoke with Sheehy at a hospital in Kalispell, Montana, recalled that the Senate candidate said 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 had never reported to his superiors when he served in Afghanistan.
In his most recent account of the incident, he slipped on ice while hiking in Glacier National Park and fell on some sharp rocks.
His arm was hit and he was worried that he had broken his arm and that the bullet from years before had become dislodged.
Sheehy has provided several conflicting accounts about the injury to his right forearm during speeches, campaign events and in his 2023 memoir, ‘Mudslingers,’ the Post reported.
Sheehy (pictured with his wife) initially told a ranger that he accidentally discharged a gun and shot himself while walking with his family in the park in 2015.
When he was being admitted to the hospital, he said he had a previous injury to his arm, but “he didn’t tell them the whole story because he was being admitted to an emergency room,” he said.
He recalled telling staff: ‘You know, I hurt my arm. You know, there’s a gunshot wound there. …I just need to take a look at it and make sure everything is okay.’
Hospital staff informed him that they were required to report all gunshot wounds to authorities, Sheehy said.
Sheehy feared the ranger would report him to the Navy if he told the truth, which could lead to an investigation. As a result, he decided to make up a story about how he had received the gunshot wound.
But Sheehy may have already made up the story and told it to hospital staff before the ranger arrived, according to Sheehy’s attorney, Daniel Watkins.
‘Mister. “Sheehy tried to explain that the injury was not recent, but was told they had to report the injury anyway,” the attorney wrote in a letter, adding that Sheehy told hospital staff that he had fired his gun in the park.
Neither Sheehy nor his attorney clarified what account was provided to the medical professional who examined his wound.
At the time, Sheehy was still in the Navy Reserve and many of his former teammates were still serving, he said.
A military investigation could 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 firearm in Sheehy’s vehicle and discovering it fully loaded, but missing a bullet.
Sheehy’s attorney called the ranger’s account “a fabrication,” but Sheehy noted, “Everything he says is true as far as he knows.”
Watkins said Sheehy couldn’t accidentally drop the gun because “it’s not possible to do so based on the design of the gun’s firing mechanism.”
It still remains a mystery how many times, on what 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 wounded on about seven different occasions, with improvised explosive devices, and I was shot three times on different occasions, in different places on my body.”
In a section of his ‘Mudslingers: A True Story of Aerial Firefighting’ published in December last year, he said he had multiple gunshot wounds.
But later in the book, he wrote that there was only one time his body “was hit by a bullet” when he was resupplying local Afghan troops.
It still remains a mystery how many times, on what parts of his body, under what circumstances and by whom Sheehy was shot.
Sheehy has been endorsed by former President Donald Trump as the candidate “best positioned” to defeat incumbent Senate Democrat Jon Tester.
He thought he had hit his arm on a rock, but was in “quite a bit of pain” when he returned to base, writing, “Later I found out I had a bullet in my arm!” By the way, she is still there today.
In another chapter, he said he was hit “by a friendly bullet that ricocheted,” but did not denounce the shooter, who is “a total stud who had a successful career as a SEAL.”
In this week’s interview with the Post, Sheehy said the night patrol and friendly fire were referring to the same event.
But unlike what he wrote in the book, Sheehy said he can’t determine who shot him because the night was “chaotic,” although he believes it was someone on his team.
‘To be very clear, I don’t know where the bullet came from. Sometimes people find it hard to believe, but in Hollywood they make it seem [in] In a gunfight, everyone knows exactly what is happening. … That’s just not how it happens,” he said.
He said reporting the gunshot wound would have led to a “massive investigation” by NCIS (Naval Criminal Investigative Service).
He added that in Afghanistan he was shot twice in total and said: “I was not hit, but I was… technically hit by another bullet in a separate incident,” he said.
Katie Martin, his campaign spokeswoman, said Sheehy was shot three times and the third bullet hit the radio on his body.
The X-ray of Sheehy’s arm provided to the Post does indeed show a circular object lodged in his right forearm, the outlet reported.
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 wound is.
Thomas J. Esposito, a professor at the University of Illinois College of Medicine in Peoria, said it is “doubtful” that the injury was caused by a ricocheting bullet because of “the softness of its edges.”