RAZR stops a bullet, its owner reports "feeling lucky, punk."
By Joseph L. Flatley 
posted Nov 21st 2008 5:17PM
posted Nov 21st 2008 5:17PM
New Orleans resident Ronald Richard was mowing the lawn when he felt a hard object hit him in the chest -- precisely where he'd been keeping his pink Swarovski-encrusted (just kidding) RAZR. It was only after Richard took off his sweater that he discovered the .45-caliber slug and realized that the phone had literally taken a bullet for him. According to paramedics, the angle of the bullet and the modest stopping power of the cellphone were all that stood between the man and serious injury or even death. Instead, this lucky gent got away with little more than a fairly significant bruise and an excuse to pick up that Aura he's been coveting.
[Via Switched]
[Via Switched]
Reminds me of the scene in The Simpsons when Ned Flander's bible stops a bullet. Good times...
You're telling me a RAZR did something.... good? No way.
Reminds ME of "Penn and Teller's How to Play with your Food" which came with a fake Kevlar sugar packet. The book suggested that this might stop a bullet if one kept it in one's left breast pocket. It also suggested this might result in a sugar packet and bullet lodged in the heart.
Piece of the True Cross?
Is there any situation in life that hasn't been parodied on a Simpsons episode yet?
Yeah, this is definitely a Motorola marketing scheme.
Now they're going to shoot someone with a non-Moto phone, compare the events, and highlight how the RAZR saves lives.
Genius, Moto, genius.
@Dan:
....No.
This is just what Motorola needs to increase RAZR sales.
I keep my phone in my trouser pocket in order to protect a more important organ.
This?
http://www.ctsfw.edu/chapel/organ.php
small pockets then :D
is your organ grown on a wrong place or you just carry your cell phone that way?
One more reason why I don't care about pocket bulge and having a bigger phone.
HTC Apache, Mogul, and TP are all reasonably big things.
Probably by organ, he is referring to the Skeletal system.
Not very well protected from cancer, though...
Yeah, mine usually hangs to right.
how could you not know when you are shot? i mean the cellphone stopped the bullet but dont you think he would've noticed at least something? btw what happened to his sweater ? did it have a hole?
the READ link will teach you alot
bustin a cap in a working man while he mows the lawn. ruthless!
I wish it were really Swarovski encrusted :(
Would have been way better.
when will the razist violence stop?
During the next raze to Presidential canidacy.
I gotta call BS on this... yeah a bullet may have struck his phone and broke it, but if it only had enough energy to dent the phone then I doubt it would even have penetrated his skin let alone killed him.
I don't know why you're being low ranked for your comment.
I'm not saying this didn't happen, but the bullet probably wouldn't have killed him if that's all it did to the RAZR.
"...the angle of the bullet and the modest stopping power of the cellphone ..."
As per the article he was "hit by a stranded bullet"!!
I bet the bullet was just stopping to ask for directions.
Agreed, someone needs to submit this to Mythbusters!
@Jenny
They already did: http://kwc.org/mythbusters/2006/04/episode_50_bullets_fired_up_vo.html
They found that not much stops a bullet, including a police badge, unless you hit one with gold dead on in the center.
the key to this is the angle. if hit head on he would have been injured because the phone is probably ony a feew mm of metal, but if hit at an angle , depending on the angle the bulet might have to go throug a centimetre of metal, which is hard work for a bullet
incidentally , this is why tanks had angled bodywork in the first half of he century , because they could then use lss armour and therefore be faster , while still being able to deflect bullets ( unless a brave/crafty person shot at rightangles to the armour from up a tree or something.)
bad spelling ,,
no sorry but the key is the thing they left out which was the bullet was shot from more than a quarter a mile away so it was pretty much stopping anyways, still might have saved him from a minor wound though.
Half a mile eh, he must have a great view then.
Remind me not to move to New Orleans. Seriously, is there not reason as to why he got shot?
rtfa, right. Apparently it was probably stray fire from hunters.
It could of been shot from some distance away; if you shoot into the sky the bullet will literally travel miles.
I think you have this story upside down. It is much more likely the phone that was the target.
It didn't actually happen in New Orleans ( surprisingly enough). It happened in Covington, la which is a suburb across lake ponchartrain about 45 min drive from NOLA.
He got shot by a stray, because some people are idiots and shoot into the air (dumb)
The fact that it barely dented his cellphone means it was very low velocity, most of its energy was gone and it probably wouldnt have done serious damage even had the phone not been in the way.
A bullet is going its fastest right out of the barrel of the gun, after that wind resistance and gravity slow it down and bring it to the earth, the farther it is from the muzzle of the gun the less energy it has.
For standard shooting situations this is neither here nor there, as it has more than enough energy to seriously damage anything the individual will be able to actually hit on purpose.
It only matters at long ranges and when shooting into the air.
Shooting into the air is dumb, and anyone doing so is still held legally responsible for the bullet they unleashed, if they are discovered.
@Mathurin: You are correct in saying that air resistance (friction) would slow the bullet down over time, but not as much as you think.
More importantly, gravity does NOT slow the speed of a bullet! This is grade 9 physics here. Projectiles follow a skewed parabolic trajectory (skewed because of air resistance). This means that at any given height of the bullet, the vertical velocity will be identical. Any time the bullet is below the firing height, the vertical velocity is actually HIGHER than it was originally. Since vertical and horizontal velocities are independent functions, this means gravity has no effect at all on horizontal velocity and, thus gravity does not slow bullets down; unless, of course, you shoot at a target that is directly above you.
The linked article said that they suspect the bullet came from nearby hunters... wtf are they hunting with a .45 cal pistol cartridge... which does not have great range in a flat trajectory.
That's exactly what I was wondering. Then again, if you're hunting people, which seems to be the most common past time in New Orleans, it makes perfect sense.
Who said it was a pistol round? The Model 92 (1892) lever-action is sold in .45 caliber. (think cowboy Winchester rifle)
http://www.cheaperthandirt.com/48627-1.html
Model 92 Carbine lever-action rifle
.45 Long Colt
16" round barrel
8 round capacity
I can only guess it was a stray shot from a pretty good distance. I've been hit in the arm by a stray .45 from, what I guess, was about 150 yards or less (with no protection) and it felt similar to being shot by a paintball - not that bad really.
I award you the "badass of the day" award.
Oh wow, YOU'RE cool.
I'll bet you winced when you get a bandage. Other than that, ou let it hurt. That's how they do it in the movies, right?
You should just change your name to Chuck Norris right now...seriously.
Better to be a badass than an asshole.
Anyway, I didn't really think being lightly hit by a stray bullet made me a badass - it was just a story. Had I caught it with my teeth, I would rightfully claim badass status.
PS - I pretty much knew sharing this story with engadget readers would get me low ranked and ragged on for some reason. Maybe you're just jealous that nothing interesting ever happens in your life.
Aw, I still love ya.
It looks like he needed a new phone anyway.