Exposing the Big Game

Forget Hunters' Feeble Rationalizations and Trust Your Gut Feelings: Making Sport of Killing Is Not Healthy Human Behavior

Exposing the Big Game

Olympia man taken to Harborview Medical Center after hunting accident

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A fog looms over Rimrock lake off of U.S. Highway 12 near White Pass, Wash., Thursday, Jan. 12, 2017. The area has already seen snow this fall, not as much as pictured here, but that won’t be far away. (SOFIA JARAMILLO/Yakima Herald-Republic file)

NACHES, Wash. — A 28-year-old Olympia man is at Harborview Medical Center in Seattle after accidentally shooting himself in the elbow while hunting near Rimrock Lake Thursday.

But it took more than two hours to get him there after a helicopter had to turn around due to of inclement weather.

The man was hunting with a primitive, muzzle-loading rifle, said sheriff’s Sgt. Judd Towell. Just after 10:30 a.m., he slipped and dropped his rifle, which fell behind his arm and discharged — shooting him in the back of the elbow, said Chief Criminal Deputy Ed Levesque. Deputies would not release the man’s name Thursday.

Towell said when the older, more primitive weapons hit the ground it sometimes causes them to release the lock and fire.

The man was able to apply his own tourniquet, tell dispatchers where he was and walk to the nearest road so deputies could find him, Towell said.

“He’s a pretty responsible guy,” he said. “He really saved his own life.”

An ambulance picked him up around 1 p.m., and took him to a local hospital, before he was flown to Harborview. Information on his condition was not available Thursday evening.

Towell said the gunshot wound was not life-threatening, however the man could lose his arm.

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