Before his 1945 novella Animal Farm made him famous, George Orwell fought in the Spanish Civil War of the 1930s. The 1984 author’s stint didn’t last long, however, as he was seriously injured near Huesca after just 10 days on the front lines. At 5 a.m. on the morning of May 20, 1937, Orwell was struck by a sniper’s bullet mid-sentence while speaking with some other soldiers. “This was always a dangerous time, because we had the dawn at our backs, and if you stuck your head above the parapet it was clearly outlined against the sky,” he explained in his memoir Homage to Catalonia.In that moment, Orwell recalled feeling as though he’d been at the center of an explosion. “There seemed to be a loud bang and a blinding flash of light all round me, and I felt a tremendous shock—no pain, only a violent shock, such as you get from an electrical terminal,” he wrote of the incident. While Orwell was conscious of being hurt and knew he’d gotten hit somewhere in the front of his body, it was only when he managed to faintly squeak out an inquiry that he found out how bad things were. “As they lifted me up a lot of blood poured out of my mouth, and I heard a Spaniard behind me say that the bullet had gone clean through my neck,” the novelist revealed.Before Writing ‘1984,’ George Orwell Nearly Died From a Sniper’s BulletHarry Milton, who assisted Orwell following the attack, attributed the shooting to Orwell’s height—he was 6’2”—and his reckless habit of poking his head out in view of enemy soldiers. “I heard the crisp sound of a high-velocity shot and Orwell [toppled] over. He landed on his back,” Milton remembered. From there, Milton administered first aid as Orwell waited to be transported to a local hospital. It wouldn’t be until eight or nine days later that his wound was finally examined by a doctor.What the doctor discovered was that the 7mm copper-plated bullet had passed through Orwell’s neck between the trachea and the carotid artery, paralyzing one of his vocal chords in the process. He was then “cheerfully” informed that he’d never get his voice back. That didn’t end up being the case, though, as Orwell reported that he could speak almost normally again by the end of that July. “No one I met at this time—doctors, nurses, practicantes, or fellow-patients—failed to assure me that a man who is hit through the neck and survives is the luckiest creature alive,” he recounted.The post George Orwell Was Once Shot Through the Throat by a Sniper and Somehow Survived appeared first on VICE.