Man accidentally shoots self in Athens parking lot

By Joe Johnson

A Madison County man was injured when he accidentally shot himself while at an Athens fast food restaurant.

Athens-Clarke County said that 21-year-old Devin Meacacke of Hull was in a pickup truck with others Monday afternoon when his gun accidentally fired, shooting him in the thigh.

The victim and two witnesses said that the incident happened in the parking lot of Chick-fil-A on Atlanta Highway, where they stopped for a bite to eat before going to a gun firing range nearby.

Meacacke was trying to remove the magazine from a semiautomatic pistol when it went off, police said, at which time a belt was used as a tourniquet on his leg to stanch the bleeding and he was driven to the hospital from where the incident was reported.

The bullet had entered the man’s upper thigh and exited from its side, police said, and a bullet fragment was recovered from the truck’s rear floorboard.

"There was nothing to indicate that anything criminal had occurred or that this was intentional injury,” an officer wrote in a police incident report.