Montana Senate hopeful and ex-Navy SEAL Tim Sheehy caught on camera claiming he still has a bullet in his arm from the Afghanistan tour — but told ranger in 2015 he accidentally shot himself

Tim Sheehy, a former Navy SEAL who ran for a Senate seat in Montana, said he lied about illegally firing a weapon in Glacier National Park to cover up a gunshot wound he suffered in Afghanistan.

Sheehy initially told a ranger that he had accidentally fired a gun and shot himself while walking in the park with his family in 2015. the Washington Post shows.

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, potentially leading to an investigation and damaging the reputation of his teammates.

At a campaign event in December, Sheehy was caught on camera saying, “I have a thick skin, even though it’s not thick enough. I still have a bullet from Afghanistan in this arm.”

Sheehy has been endorsed by former President Donald Trump as the “best positioned” candidate to defeat incumbent Senate Democrat Jon Tester.

He stated that he is unsure whether the wound in his arm was the result of friendly fire between former platoon members or from an enemy, and that he never reported it to his superiors.

He has given several conflicting accounts of gunshot wounds he suffered during speeches, campaign events and in his 2023 memoir “Mudslingers,” as reported by the Post.

According to a ticket obtained by the outlet, Sheehy told the ranger that he was arranging items in the back of his vehicle when his Colt .45 long revolver slid through the pile of items.

The gun hit the ground and accidentally shot him in the right forearm, according to Sheehy, but the bullet did not pass through. He paid a $525 fine for illegally discharging weapons in Glacier National Park.

The ranger, who spoke with Sheehy at a hospital in Kalispell, Montana, recalled the Senate candidate saying 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, said the ranger, who was interviewed by the Post on condition of anonymity.

Sheehy said he made up the story to cover up a gunshot wound that he never reported to his superiors while serving in Afghanistan.

In his latest account of the incident, he slipped on the ice while hiking in Glacier National Park and fell on some sharp rocks.

His arm was hit and he was afraid that he had broken his arm and that the bullet from years earlier might have dislodged.

When he checked into the hospital, he said he had previously injured his arm, but “didn’t tell them the whole backstory because I was just checking into the ER,” he said.

He remembered telling the staff, “You know, I hurt my arm. You know, there’s a gunshot wound in there. … I just have to take a look at it and make sure everything is OK.”

Hospital staff told him they were required to report all gunshot wounds to police, Sheehy said.

Sheehy feared the ranger would report him to the Navy if he told him the truth, possibly leading to an investigation. As a result, he decided to make up a story about how he suffered the gunshot wound.

But Sheehy may have made up the story and told hospital staff about it before the ranger arrived, said Sheehy’s attorney, Daniel Watkins.

‘Mr. Sheehy tried to explain that the wound was not fresh, but was told to report the injury anyway,” the layer wrote in a letter, adding that Sheehy told hospital staff he had discharged his gun in the park .

Neither Sheehy nor his attorney have clarified what report was given by the medical professional who examined his wound.

At the time, Sheehy was still in the Marine Reserve and many of his former teammates were still serving, he said.

A military investigation could potentially lead to Sheehy being recalled to active duty and even court-martialed. The entire team could be ‘dragged through the mud’.

The ranger was surprised by Sheehy’s claims that the story was fabricated. He recalled checking the firearm in Sheehy’s vehicle and finding it was fully loaded but one bullet was missing.

Sheehy’s attorney said the ranger’s story is “a fabrication,” but Sheehy noted, “Everything he says is true to the best of his knowledge.”

Watkins said Sheehy could not have accidentally dropped the weapon because “this is not possible based on the design of the weapon’s firing mechanism.”

It still remains a mystery how many times, in 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 injured on about seven different occasions, IEDs, and was shot three times on different occasions, in different places in my body.”

In part of his “Mudslingers: A True Story of Aerial Firefighting,” published last December, he said he suffered multiple gunshot wounds.

But later in the book he wrote that there was only one time his body was “actually hit by a bullet” while supplying local Afghan troops.

He thought he had hit his arm against a rock, but felt “quite sore” when he returned to base, writing: “I heard later that there was a bullet in my arm!” It’s still there, by the way.’

In another chapter, he said he was hit “by a friendly ricochet bullet,” but made no mention of the shooter, who is a “total stud who went on to a successful career as a SEAL.”

In this week’s interview with the Post, Sheehy said the night patrol and friendly fire referred to the same event.

But contrary to what he wrote in the book, Sheehy said he cannot find out who shot him as the night was “chaotic”, although he believes it is someone from his team.

“To be clear, I don’t know where the bullet came from. Sometimes people find that hard to believe, but in Hollywood they make it look like a gunfight, everyone knows exactly what’s going on. … It just doesn’t work that way,” he said.

He said reporting the gunshot wound would have prompted a “major investigation” by NCIS – Naval Criminal Investigative Service.

He added that he was shot a total of twice in Afghanistan, saying: “I wasn’t injured, 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, with the third bullet hitting his radio located on his body.

The X-ray of Sheehy’s arm provided to the Post does indeed show a round object lodged in his right forearm, as reported by the outlet.

Joseph V. Sakran, a trauma surgeon at Johns Hopkins Hospital, stated that 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 the result of a ricocheting bullet because of “the smoothness of the edges.”