The reader may have missed hearing of this incident that took place last year …
It was perhaps fortunate for the victim that the gunfight re-enactment was not adhering more strictly to the known facts, not least by placing the pugilists at such a distance apart. The original shoot-out was fought at much closer range, within the confines of a vacant lot that was not much wider than an alleyway. Even a blank fired at close range can wound seriously with a combination of air pressure and fragments of the container. When I met some of the Tombstone performers they told me about a film-set joker who once fired a blank (“Hey look at me!”) at his temple, with fatal consequences. Incidentally, the Kevin Costner “Wyatt Earp” movie gets the closest on film to a true representation of the details of what is known to have occurred in that lot outside the boarding house where Doc Holliday was staying just down the street from the OK Corral .
If you’re interested in further accounts of this bizarre accident, just google ‘Tombstone, Gunfight re-enactment, accident’, or similar words.
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