Had a similar experience years ago with an air rifle and received a very light tap when the .177 slug came back at me. It surprised the hell out of me as I wasn't expecting it. Never experienced it with any of my more powerful firearms so far.

To the AC who can smell cow-pats: I suggest the origin of the smell is a lot closer to you than your computer. I get seriously annoyed by those who obviously know no more about firearms than what they've learned from watching Hollywood movies trying to pass themselves off as experts on the topic.

The fire chief did say "I felt something like being hit in the stomach and assumed it was the /percussion/ from the discharged firearm," (my emphasis on "percussion") which suggests it was not a particularly substantial impact so the projectile (or a fragment thereof) was probably already robbed of most its energy prior to striking him.

Milan and gWA.45 are quite correct: in this case, he probably would have been no worse than bruised even if the DVD were not in the way.

He was just plain lucky. If he'd been in a position to take a skimming ricochet of less than 180 degrees (such as gWA.45 mentioned) or the projectile had impacted with less objects en route, he would probably be in hospital getting fragments of projectile and DVD removed from his guts.