By AL DUNN - GM Today Staff - January 5, 2007
A 65-year-old New Berlin man knows how Vice President Dick Cheney
must have felt after accidentally peppering his wife with shotgun
pellets during a hunting excursion at a town of Wayne game farm
during the Christmas holidays.
According to a Washington County Sheriff’s Department report, the
man, his 62-year-old wife and another companion were hunting
pheasants at the Oakwood Kennel and Game Farm in the town of Wayne
on Dec. 23 when the incident occurred.
The man was about 20 yards away from his wife when a pheasant was
flushed in his line of fire. He raised his shotgun and fired,
downing the bird, the report stated. His wife, who was standing near
a rock ledge, said she was hit, too, getting struck with pellets in
her cheek and her left leg. The pellet penetrated her cheek,
according to the report, but one did not penetrate her leg, although
there was some bruising where the pellet hit.
The man wanted to immediately take his wife to the hospital, but
she insisted that she wasn’t hurt that badly, that they should stop
for lunch first.
They did, and then went to a hospital in Menomonee Falls. They
sat for over two hours without being seen, according to the report,
so they left and went to Elmbrook Hospital. Because it was a
shooting incident, and following protocol, according to the report,
hospital officials notified authorities.
The man subsequently told investigators he and his wife were both
wearing blaze orange hunting gear and he did not see any orange in
his sight-line when he fired. He theorized the pellets may have
ricocheted off the stone wall his wife was standing near.
The man was told to file a report with the state Department of
Resources.
The wife was treated for the minor wounds and released from the
hospital, according to the report.
