Wee indulgent thread. Thanks so much to @RelsForJustice for their important report on plastic bullets. If you're a unionist/Protestant feeling kinda meh about it, fair enough. But a wee boy called Keith White was shot dead with one in Portadown, so maybe think about that.

I'm 17 and I'm walking up Divis Street after spending the night in my aunt's house in the Market. (I got a few quid for what happens next thanks to my young barrister who is a very big deal now, so innocent, like.) H-Block demo blocked from entering town. Shots fired. Chaos.

Running past the Ardscoil, plastics whizzing everywhere, get whacked on my back, just below the left shoulder blade. Not too sore, kinda like if your mate dug ye on the back for the craic and you'd say, 'Here, that was sore.' Sprint on, slow to a jog just before Divis Tower.

Relief. Stop. Walk. Cough. Blood flies out of my nose and mouth. Not nosebleed blood, like some serious shit I don't recognise. Somebody beside me says 'Jesus Christ, son' and everything around me starts spinning. I go down on one knee and the bloke starts calling people over.

Hands all over me and I'm coughing so much blood people are dancing to avoid it. I hit the deck. I get lifted by the arms and legs into the back of a black hack. Thanks everybody - no idea who yiz were. Taxi flying up to the Royal, I can hardly breathe through the bubbling blood.

They're panicking because they don't know what to do. They carry me in by the arms and legs and tell the first worker they meet to get somebody quick. Clinical staff arrive and they disappear. Smart move. Never had the chance to thank those two guys. I owe you my life. Thank you.

So anyway, I find out in rapid order that I have two broken ribs and that big mess has collapsed my left lung. They don't put me under, they cut an inch long hole between my ribs under the armpit and slide a tube into my pleural cavity, which I suppose I should tell you about.

The pleural cavity is a 'potential space' between the lungs and the chest wall. It is now full of blood. Anyway, the tube is now passing blood from my chest into a sweetie jar. It is a trippy thing to watch. This has all happened in an A&E cubicle. Now two big blokes are here.

Both wearing suits. RUC. One of them has a notebook and he asks the nurse beside me with red hair what my name is. She tells them to get the fuck out. They get the fuck out. I don't know who she is. I still love her. Thank you. I'm in a ward for five days. With the sweetie jar.

The red-haired nurse washes my hair and I feel like crying. I go home. I visit England for the first time with the money. I buy my ma an expensive and vulgar gold gate bracelet which she never wears and later quietly sells. I'm surprised by how seldom I think about what happened.

I have a small white scar under my armpit. There are people, children, who got shot in the face and head and heart who died or who are maimed or brain-damaged. None is English, Scots or Welsh @ChiefConPSNI - not a single one, thankfully. Please think about that. Thank you.