I know of more than one similar instances occurring. I'm pretty sure that what is happening is a pellet hits the target's belly and does a partial 'loop' as the target breaks sending the errant pellet in a direction that can be back toward the shooter.
Stuff happens, wear a good pair of impact rated glasses when shooting, period!
FWIW, I have a 20.ga. model 12 w/a target chunk imbedded it it's butt stock to what I think is a depth of about 1/2" or 12 mm. That happened while I was standing on the queue on station 7 waiting for my turn to shoot. The target piece came from the first shooters H-7 target. I have also received several minor cuts from target fragments over the years on skeet fields and a couple of pellet strikes as well. Wear glasses.
While speaking of safety, wear hearing protection. Expandable or custom ear plugs under muffs for shooting anywhere near ported barrels or a Cutts type equipped gun. Both make LOTS of concussive bad stuff for your hearing.
