Tag Archives: hunting accidents

Hunters Murder Two Bears, Then Whine About Injuries

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Wildlife Photography ©Jim Robertson, 2013. All Rights Reserved

Wildlife Photography ©Jim Robertson, 2013. All Rights Reserved

Alright, I’ve had enough of this one-sided, narcissistic reporting!

Do I have to point out to the AP that their article completely missed the point here by making a hunter the victim of the story? They report that an hour after wounding the bear with an arrow… “The hunter located the wounded bear and shot it twice more with his bow. The bear then ran down the hill and encountered a man who had arrived to assist the hunter.”

WTF? How much suffering does a non-human animal have to go through before her plight is even considered by the media and she’s seen as the victim? Here’s how the AP titled the article:

Injured black bear injures hunter near Thompson Falls

Associated Press

KALISPELL — State wildlife officials say a 150-pound female black bear wounded by a bow hunter bit the arm of the hunter’s companion before succumbing to its injuries.

Fish, Wildlife and Parks spokesman John Fraley says a man was hunting near Thompson Falls on Tuesday when he shot a black bear with a bow and arrow.

The hunter waited for several hours to make sure the bear was dead before he started tracking it. The hunter located the wounded bear and shot it twice more with his bow. The bear then ran down the hill and encountered a man who had arrived to assist the hunter. The bear bit the second man’s arm before it died.

The injured man was treated at the hospital in Plains and released.

FWP says the hunter legally tagged the bear.

….and here’s another article with the same slant, which also ends with a dead bear. Note that the real victim was just out eating berries…

September 11, 2013 at 2:43 PM

Shots from other hunters halted grizzly attack in Alaska

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ANCHORAGE (AP) — An Alaska grizzly bear wounded by a Rhode Island hunter survived more than 90 minutes before attacking the man and slashing his head.

Alaska State Troopers say John Matson sustained injuries Monday to his head and body. The wounds were not considered life-threatening.

Troopers tell the Anchorage Daily News that Matson was hunting with another hunter and an assistant guide.

Matson shot a bear feeding on berries. The bear rolled into brush but popped out and ran.

The hunters waited about 90 minutes before going into thick cover after the bear.

Troopers say the assistant guide heard Matson scream as the bear attacked. The other men fired shots and the bear ran off.

The men walked about a mile to their camp. Matson was flown Tuesday to Anchorage

Hunter gores himself on antler of elk he killed

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It’s not like you have to search for these type of articles on hunting accidents–they’re in the news every day. This was sent to me by an alert reader who saw the elk as the ultimate victim of the one-sided sporting event.

Even the Associated Press saw the potential for divine justice here, opening their story with the line:

An elk slain in Utah had its last revenge when its antler punctured

Wildlife Photography ©Jim Robertson, 2013.

Wildlife Photography ©Jim Robertson, 2013.

the neck of the hunter who’d brought him down.

The Associated Press

VERNAL, Utah —
An elk slain in Utah had its last revenge when its antler punctured the neck of the hunter who’d brought him down.

The Salt Lake Tribune reports (http://bit.ly/15L3B5p ) the 51-year-old hunter snagged the elk Saturday east of Vernal.

Uintah County Undersheriff John Laursen says the man was trying to roll the 600- to 700-pound animal over when the antler stabbed him behind his jaw.

Deputies say the hunter called for help and told dispatchers he was having trouble breathing.

Rescuers airlifted the man to the hospital, and crews put a tube into his trachea to keep it open.

Laursen says the hunter was later flown to a different hospital for surgery, and was expected to make a full recovery.

—

Information from: The Salt Lake Tribune, http://www.sltrib.com

Weapons seized in hunting homicide

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by K.C. Mehaffey

Sept. 4 CHESAW — Sheriff’s deputies on Tuesday seized weapons and ammunition from a Chesaw residence, across a remote road from where a grouse hunter was shot and killed on Monday.

The hunter, whose wife was notified Tuesday night, was Michael R. Carrigan, 52, of Hoquiam, said Okanogan County Sheriff Frank Rogers.

Rogers said no one has been arrested, but deputies searched a home at 470 Pontiac Ridge Road and questioned the residents, a father and son.

He said the house is about 100 yards from where Carrigan was shot.

Carrigan’s hunting partner, George R. Stover, 65, also of Hoquiam, near Aberdeen, told deputies that they were driving up Cow Camp Road at about 7 p.m. when they saw a grouse, and Carrigan got out of their truck to shoot it. After firing twice and missing, he heard another shot and turned to see Carrigan with blood on him fall to the ground. When Stover heard a second shot, he slid over to the driver’s seat and drove away, the sheriff said.

He called for help from another residence.

Rogers said when deputies arrived, Carrigan was dead.

He said deputies are investigating the scene as a homicide, and have been assisted by state Department of Fish and Wildlife officers, U.S. Border Patrol agents, and the Washington State Crime Lab.

“We seized a lot of evidence,” Rogers said. He said the homeowners are currently considered “persons of interest,” and the son was arrested on an unrelated warrant.

10-year-old Girl Shot in Idaho Hunting Accident

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I remember when 10-year-old girls weren’t out hunting with shotguns. The parents should be charged with abuse….

http://magicvalley.com/news/local/mini-cassia/year-old-girl-injured-in-hunting-accident/article_18afb922-7faa-5d5d-baed-c2e01aba6133.html

BY LAURIE WELCH lwelch@magicvalley.com

BURLEY • A 10-year-old girl who was hunting with family members Sunday near Lake Walcott was shot in the face when she fell while carrying a .bolt-action 410 shotgun.

Cedar Glaesemann was taken by ambulance to Minidoka Memorial Hospital, said Cassia County Undersheriff George Warrell.

She later was transported to Primary Children’s Medical Center in Salt Lake City, Utah.

Medical center spokeswoman Bonnie Midget said she couldn’t reach the family Tuesday to get permission to release Glaesemann’s medical condition.

“We haven’t heard anything about her condition since she was taken to Primary’s,” said Warrell.

The 911 call came in shortly after 10 a.m. Sunday, said a sheriff’s news release. Deputies investigated and ruled it an accidental shooting.

The sheriff’s office “urges everyone this hunting season to be safe when handling firearms,” the statement said.

Hunting accident kills SC cop

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Associated Press

GEORGETOWN, S.C — A Dorchester County sheriff’s captain has died while hunting in a forest in Georgetown County.

The coroner’s office says 44-year-old James Nettles of Summerville was reported missing late Monday morning near Andrews. His body was found around 4 p.m.

Officials say Nettles was not shot and there is no sign of foul play.

An autopsy was planned Tuesday at the Medical University of South Carolina Hospital in Charleston.

2 People (One an Eight Year Old) Injured in Dove Hunting Accident

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[Bad things can happen to those who try to kill the symbol of peace.]

Two Injured in Hunting Accident,

Owen Jensen Reports Live at Ten

Nebraska Game and Parks is investigating a hunting accident at Yankee Hill Lake about 12 miles southwest of Lincoln.

According to Nebraska Game and Parks, two people were injured in an accident around 8 p.m. Sunday.

“There were some hunters hunting on a wildlife management area” said Levi Krause, Nebraska Game and Parks. “One hunter shot at a dove apparently it was over a slight ridge. We believe that the pellets from his shotgun injured two individuals from the side of the ridge.”

Krause said an eight year old boy and 26 year old man were taken to Bryan Health’s West Campus. The extent of their injuries is unknown at this time.

According to the Nebraska Game and Parks website, dove season opened Sunday, September 1st and runs through Oct. 30th.

Yankee Hill Lake is a Wildlife Management Area in Lancaster County.

Christian_Doves

 

16-year-old killed in hunting rifle accident

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http://www.kptv.com/story/23301778/16-year-old-killed-in-hunting-rifle-accident-in-home

16-year-old killed in hunting rifle accident in home
Posted: Aug 30, 2013
By FOX 12 Staff – email

DRAIN, OR (KPTV) –
A 16-year-old boy was killed when a friend handed him a hunting rifle inside a home and a shot was accidentally fired.

Douglas County deputies said it happened at 10:45 p.m. Thursday on Hayhurst Road in Drain.

Investigators said the victim was spending the night at his 15-year-old friend’s house. The boys were in the bedroom together when they decided to handle the rifle belonging to the younger boy.

The 15-year-old was handing the rifle to his friend when it accidentally discharged, according to investigators. The 16-year-old boy was shot and died at the scene.

The Douglas County Deputy Medical Examiner’s Office determined the shooting to be accidental. Both boys live in the Drain area and attend school there.

Deputies are not releasing their names at this time.

90823_Pred_ATACS

“It was a freak act of God”

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Sheep hunter dies in Alaska Range south of Fairbanks
Posted: Tuesday, August 27, 2013

Tim Mowry/tmowry@newsminer.com

FAIRBANKS—A sheep hunter from Texas was killed in the Alaska Range south of Fairbanks on Friday after a large rock fell on him as he was walking along a creek bottom.

Manuel Rechy, 48, of Laredo, Texas, was on a guided hunt in the area of Red Mountain and Dry Creek, 49 miles east of the Parks Highway near Healy, when the accident occurred, according to Alaska State Troopers.

The guide who owns the guiding company Rechy was hunting with, Eric Umphenour, of Fairbanks, called the accident “a freak deal.”

“A rock came down the hill and crushed him,” Umphenour said. “It wasn’t a rock slide; it was just one big boulder.

“It was a freak act of God,” he said. “It’s like being struck by lightning.”

Rechy and an assistant hunting guide were walking down a creek bottom at around 6:30 p.m., scouting for Dall sheep, when the large rock broke loose from about 30 feet above them on a hill, Umphenour said.

“(The assistant guide) saw it coming and told him to get out of the way, but the guy wasn’t fast enough,” he said. “It’s not like we were walking up cliffs. They were in a creek bottom. It was in the valley floor.”

The rock, which Umphenour estimated weighed 1,000 pounds, slammed into Rechy, knocking him in the creek and causing serious injuries to his legs. The assistant guide pulled the hunter out of the creek and covered him with his coat before going to alert Umphenour. When the two guides returned less than an hour later, Rechy was unresponsive, Umphenour said.

Umphenour used a satellite phone to call Alaska State Troopers, who were notified at 7:41 p.m. Troopers attempted to fly a helicopter to the scene but turned back due to bad weather, trooper spokeswoman Megan Peters said.

Troopers alerted the Rescue Coordination Center in Anchorage, which in turn notified the Alaska Air National Guard. Rescuers arrived at the scene of the accident at around 2 a.m., about six hours after troopers were notified, Umphenour said. Rechy was flown to Fairbanks Memorial Hospital, where he was pronounced dead on arrival.

Umphenour, who has been guiding in the area for 20 years, said he doesn’t know what caused the rock to move. It had been raining all day Friday prior to the accident, he said.

“It’s a creek I’ve been up 20 or 30 times over the course of 20 years,” Umphenour said. “We snowmobile up it in the winter.”

While he didn’t know Rechy well, the Texan was a repeat customer, Umphenour said. “A lot of his friends had hunted with us. He was no stranger to us.”

On Tuesday, Umphenour was still having a hard time trying to process what happened.

“I’ve never had anything like that happen,” he said. “When somebody dies in a hunting accident they usually get shot.”

Sheep photo copyright Jim Robertson

Sheep photo copyright Jim Robertson

Man Mauled by Grizzly in Alaska was Hunting Guide

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Unfortunately these type of stories always seem to end with one or more animals dead…

Photo Copyright Jim Robertson

Photo Copyright Jim Robertson

Man mauled by grizzly in Alaska recounts attack

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) — A man who recently was mauled by a grizzly bear near northern Alaska’s remote Brooks Range said he recognized the animal that left him with broken teeth and a deep gash in his arm from his guide trips.

Jim Tuttle said he and the hunters he guided often spotted the bear, nicknamed Buddy. But the animal was never aggressive toward them until two weeks ago, when Tuttle was walking along a creek and saw it charging.

Tuttle said 16 years of guiding in the area had dulled him to the risks of working in bear country. When the incident occurred earlier this month, he was walking to a caribou carcass by himself, armed only with a pair of trekking poles.

“I am partly to blame. I got complacent, and I paid for it,” he told the Anchorage Daily News (http://bit.ly/19VFd8D ). “I guess I should have had a gun in my hand, safety off, ready to shoot.”

He said the attack northwest of Anaktuvuk Pass lasted less than 15 seconds. When it was over, Tuttle was spitting out broken teeth and needed a tourniquet on his left arm. One of his cheekbones was cracked.

Because of dense fog, Tuttle had to wait 36 hours for a National Guard helicopter to reach him. Following surgery and dozens of stitches, he is recovering at his Anchorage home.

Tuttle suffered nerve damage to the face and wounds to his groin and knee have temporarily hobbled him. A cast on his left wrist has fixed his forearm in place so it can grow back muscle.

Tuttle, 52, said he feels lucky to be alive.

He had flown into the hunting camp in early August, where he planned to stay for two weeks. The camp was 15 miles from the base camp run by his outfitter, Arctic North Guides.

Chris Carrigee, who stayed in Tuttle’s camp with his son before the mauling, said grizzlies were commonly in the area and would eat meat scraps that hunters left behind.

Carigee had taken photographs of his son and Tuttle in front of Buddy with their coffee and oatmeal. He said he didn’t feel there was any danger.

On Aug. 14, after Carrigee and his son left, Tuttle was working with new hunters. The group killed a caribou that morning. They carried some of the meat back to camp and ate lunch before Tuttle returned to the carcass.

He heard the bear coming from behind him. He swung his hiking poles in the animal’s face, but the bear knocked him over and bit him on the arm and hand before walking away.

“I thought maybe I’d get lucky, and she’d leave. No, she turned right back around, and then really chewed and got into where she could bite my face,” Tuttle said. “I said to myself, ‘You’re dead.’

After the bear left, Tuttle made a tourniquet from rope in his backpack, and waited 10 minutes to make sure the bear didn’t return, before limping back to camp.

The hunters called to request a rescue, but the camp was fogged in.

The owner of Tuttle’s outfitting company flew in the following morning during a break in weather with a retired paramedic and medical supplies. But they left Tuttle, believing they couldn’t fly him all the way to a hospital.

At 3 a.m. the following morning, the National Guard helicopter came.

The bear was killed by one of the hunters in Tuttle’s group. Harry Reynolds III, a retired biologist who worked for the Alaska Department of Fish and Game for more than 30 years, said it’s hard to say what made the bear attack. “They’re wild animals,” he said.

———

Information from: Anchorage (Alaska) Daily News, http://www.adn.com

Associated Press

Never Trust a Hunter Named “Killer”

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It’s nice to hear that the hunter who died in a shooting accident in Tomales, CA had so many friends. However, one of them, going by the name “Killer,” may not have been such a good friend after all. He did the deceased a disservice by trying to post the following comment with details about his alleged friend’s death:

“He already killed a deer before he jumped in his Jeep and ran it over (just to make sure it was dead). The ‘accident’ occurred when he backed up over the (slightly smashed) deer and the firearm slid from the gun rack and discharged, striking the valiant hunter in the hand and throat.”

Now “killer” is back, now cleverly posting under a new handle, “Animal Lover.” This time his comment is just a retraction of his last (unwelcome) comment:

“I am amazed that you people actually believe Mr. Weller drove a vehicle over the deer. I put that non-fact in my comment because the Moderator would not post my original comment. I knew that it would not probably not help the “hunting cause”, but it did provoke the desired result” [Which was what? To make us think hunters have so little regard for the animals they shoot that they’d drive over them afterwards; or to draw out a lot of outraged comments from us for some reason?

How are we supposed to believe him this time? If I believed him that his friend drove over the deer he shot, it’s because I never had the pleasure to make that particular hunter’s acquaintance. But I’ve known plenty of other hunters who routinely pulled similar stunts. When asked if he’d seen any deer that day, one unabashedly announced, “No, but I got off a couple of good ‘sound shots’!” [Meaning, he shot blindly at a sound he heard in the bushes].

I’ve seen hunters standing up in the back of pickup beds, loaded rifles at the ready, in hopes of shooting deer from the road. Working in the woods, I’ve been in the rig while the driver tried to run a deer down. And of course, the truck cab with three cammo-clad, orange-vested hunters sitting abreast, each with a can of malt liquor on their lap, is as common a site as falling yellow leaves in Autumn.

So, do I believe “Killer’s” original story, or his new retraction? Maybe neither; maybe this is something the local Sherriff and county coroner should look into. Who knows, maybe “Killer” himself is responsible for the killing. He sure likes to blow smoke like someone with a guilty conscience.

Anyway, it doesn’t really matter to us; we’re here for the animals. We don’t have time to dwell on the hunters or their apologists (although some sure seem to crave any attention they can get).

Text and Wildlife Photography © Jim Robertson

Text and Wildlife Photography © Jim Robertson