When the sound of the shot rang throughout the garage, Nick Sclafani, then a 13-year-old freshman at Middleborough High School, feared his life would be changed forever.

“I remember the day . . . like it was yesterday,’’ he recalled recently. “It’s one of the hardest days to forget about.’’

It was Aug. 6, 2013. He and his friends, said Sclafani, were “messing around’’ in the garage at a friend’s house when one of them pulled out a BB gun pistol and pointed it directly at him. Unaware it was loaded, he pulled the trigger.

At point-blank range, the copper BB pellet went to the back of Sclafani’s left eye. He was rushed to a hospital.

The first two months after the accident brought extended surgeries, but the doctors were unable to save the vision in the eye.

Then, they gave him the worst news a hockey player could ever hear: He could never play a contact sport again.

“Every time we went to the doctor, Nick would ask when he could get back on the ice,’’ said Nick’s mother, Jennifer. “Even though the doctors said he wouldn’t be able to play hockey again, Nick never thought of that as an option.’’

The school year that followed brought many ups and downs. He missed classes for long periods of time to complete more surgeries or simply to rest his eye.

But December brought good news: His doctor said he could skate on the ice. No contact, but just skate. That was all Sclafani needed.

With lifting weights and many other forms of exercise still forbidden, he said, he started pedaling on an exercise bicycle to try to get back in shape. By his reckoning, he spent almost two hours a day practicing his stick-handling for the hockey season in his mother’s bedroom. It drove his parents crazy, he said, but they supported his work ethic.

“After working out this much and not being able to play a sport, I did start to question why this accident happened to me,’’ Sclafani said. “Luckily, I had my two brothers [who] stuck by me and pushed me to continue working out on a regular basis.’’

All that worked payed off in the fall of his sophomore year, when the doctors cleared him to play golf. It wasn’t his favorite sport, Sclafani concedes, but he took it as a step to his ultimate goal.

It was at a routine medical checkup near the end of the golf season, said Sclafani, as he and his parents were about to leave, that the doctor said six words that made him cry, laugh, and scream in joy.

You are cleared to play hockey.

“When we heard Nick was able to come back to hockey,’’ said Sean Hart, 17 a longtime friend and fellow Middleborough senior, “it was an amazing feeling.’’

“The ability to go back to the ice and skate with friends and teammates,’’ said Sclafani, “was an indescribable experience.’’

It got better still. In his first game back, against Sandwich, he and a teammate were skating up ice on a fast break when the teammate passed the puck his way. Sclafani let loose a slap shot, he said, then closed his eyes, hoping for the best.

When he opened them, he saw the puck fly past the goalie into the net.

“Words can’t describe that moment on the ice,’’ Sclafani said. “That was probably one of the best days of my life, because it was a sense of closure on the accident and everything I had gone through over the past year and a half.’’

Now 17, Sclafani is a senior and captain of the hockey team. He started as a defensive tackle on the football team last fall, and he’ll play his last season of high school baseball this spring before heading off to college.

He’s still not sure what school he’ll land at, but is certain of one thing: It needs to have a hockey club or at least intramural hockey leagues. He’s also not sure what he’ll eventually do for a living, but feels he has time to make that choice.

Since the injury occurred almost four years ago, he says he’s often been asked whether he would go back and change what happened to him in 2013 if he had that power.

For him, the answer is easy: no.

“I truly believe God had a reason for this to happen to me and I think it needed to happen,’’ Sclafani said. “I’ve learned so many things about myself with this injury, and I think it’s made me the man I am today as well as the man I hope to be in the future.’’

Brian Mozey can be reached at brian.mozey@globe.com. His Twitter handle is @BrianMozey.