I was hit in the head from a slide that had broken off the frame from the recoil. Many of the M9's that were initially bought from Beretta had cracks in the frames that allowed things like that to happen. I was lucky - one Soldier died when his M9 self-destructed and took him with it.
Once again BS.
The M9's didn't have cracks in them and the slides only broke when used with ammunition that was out of spec and of way too high pressure. If you put 50,000 psi ammo through a 1911 rest assured, bad things will happen as well. There were only a few documented cases of slides breaking on M9s and most of them during tests. The whole m9-slide-breaking-and-hitting-me-in-the-face scenario should be listed on Snopes under urban myths and legends.
BTW I shoot a beretta 92FS competitively. I have had it explode on me from a double charge of powder, I was completely unscathed by the accident, and my pistol survived as well- just had to remove the right grip panel, reinstall the trigger bar, then screw the grip panel back on. I've seen double charges completely destroy 1911s.
http://www.logicsouth.com/~lcoble/lfnv/92fpistl.txt