The mythology around Ernest Hemingway is honestly ridiculous. He’s sometimes depicted sipping café au lait in a beret with artists and writers at Paris cafes. Or maybe he’s a globetrotting correspondent with the laissez-faire of James Bond, emerging from multiple world wars unscathed. But the truth is “Papa” was just the original Florida Man. He lived in Key West for years, and most of the stories from that time include boats, guns, and booze. The classic Florida Man trifecta.

Hemingway’s stories worthy of a Florida Man include too many fights and car crashes to recount. But the most Florida-Man-ish are probably wheelbarrowing his drunk friend home, knocking himself out by opening a skylight on his head while pissing late at night, stealing urinal from his favorite bar to keep in his back yard, accidentally becoming a KGB recruit, and outfitting his fishing boat to hunt down German submarines–complete with multiple Jai alai players trained to toss grenades down open hatches.

How Ernest Hemingway shot both his legs with one bullet–while fishing

But our feature presentation is the time Ernest Hemingway shot his own legs with a gun. Because he was trying to shoot a shark from his boat.

I’ve never been deep sea fishing for marlin. I’m told that while tiring them out and pulling them in, they’re especially vulnerable to shark attacks. What’s more, a several-hundred-pound fish often must be towed home. In which case, it’s just floating shark bait. So dealing with sharks is a major challenge. Hemingway’s brilliant solution: Shoot the pests!

On this particular day, Hemingway threw out some hooks to try catching and killing two medium-sized sharks messing with his catch. As his fishing partner reeled the things in he grabbed the gaff–a stick with a spear head used to kill large fish–to skewer the wrigglers. When that didn’t work, he grabbed a gun.

Now, Hemingway kept multiple guns on his boat. From hunting rifles, to a “Tommy gun” machine gun (because this was the 1930s). Luckily, on this day he reached for his small caliber pistol. A .22, to be exact.

He tried to simultaneously gaff and shoot one of the sharks, and when it broke his gaff, he hit his own hand and his gun went off–while pointed at his legs. With one bullet, he managed to shoot a hole in both calves. That would have been some John Wick accuracy…if it had been on purpose.

In a letter to a friend, Hemingway did some self-censoring to be funny. He wrote that his first reaction was: “Well I’ll be of unsavory parentage. I’ve been shot!”

He also wrote there was “no pain or discomfort; only a small hole about three inches below the kneecap and another ragged hole bigger than your thumb.” So what do you do? Apparently ou sit down and ask your crew for some iodine and some bread. And another drink.