February 14, 2012
From Spokesman.com
Officer Curt Wood investigated a hunting incident situation in
Lincoln County, where a 13 year old male was accidentally shot in
the face by his 13 year old hunting companion.
The two
subjects had been hunting rabbits in the Wilbur area, when a rabbit
was observed running into some old irrigation pipes that had been
piled up.
The shooting victim went to the far end of the irrigation pipe in
an attempt to keep the rabbit from running out. His companion, who
was hunting with a .22 caliber rifle, stayed on the other end of the
pipes. The victim attempted to keep the rabbit in the pipe by
inserting a blow (dart) gun into his end of the pipe. The victim
then decided to visually check the pipe, to see what had happened to
the rabbit. When the victim knelt down to look in the pipe, his
hunting companion decided to take a shot at the rabbit at about the
same time. At the time of the shot, the victim could not be seen by
the shooter.
The bullet struck the victim near the top of
his nose, entered his sinus cavity, and actually hit and bounced off
of his C-1 neck vertebra. It was later determined that the bullet
had probably struck the rabbit first, and then fragmented as it
travelled down the irrigation pipe. The shooter was able to
transport the victim back home on his quad, and the boy was rushed
to a hospital in Spokane.
The victim’s parents later told
Officer Wood that if the fragmented bullet had taken a slightly
different path, or if the entire bullet had struck him, it would
have killed him instantly.
The victim will have to undergo
surgery next month to remove the bullet fragment. Doctors said the
boy should make a complete recovery.
Officer Wood warned the
shooter for not possessing a valid small game hunting license.
Fair Use Notice: This document may contain copyrighted material
whose use has not been specifically authorized by the copyright owners. We believe
that this not-for-profit, educational use on the Web constitutes
a fair use of the copyrighted material (as provided for in section
107 of the US Copyright Law). If you wish to use this copyrighted
material for purposes of your own that go beyond fair use, you must
obtain permission from the copyright owner.
