Hunting accidents leave blood on the leaves

Blood on the LeavesAs we open the fall hunting seasons in Maine, it would be a good idea for all of us to read Blood on the Leaves, published by Rowman and Littlefield, to remind ourselves of how one brief mistake with a firearm can cause such tragedy. The authors of this book, Rod Slings, Mike Van Durme, and B. Keith Byers, were hunting accident investigators in their states. And the stories they tell about the hunting accidents they investigated are sobering.

One of the authors actually got shot himself – twice. The first time he was crawling through the grass to get a look at someone who was hunting a stream. He thought they were illegally hunting ducks. But they were actually shooting frogs – legally, with a .22 rifle.

As the hunters, in a canoe, got close to him, the officer stepped up onto the dike, well above the water line. “The occupants of the canoe continued toward me. When they were about thirty yards away, the gentleman in the front put his paddle down and slowly raised his rifle in my direction. A little shocked by his unexpected actions, I just stood there, looking at him and wondering, What the heck is he doing?”

What he was doing was shooting at a frog, and by not looking up above the frog, the shooter did not see the officer. His bullet hit the frog, bounced off the water, and hit the officer in the ear, missing his carotid artery by just an inch. The officer yelled, got the hunters to the shore, and even checked their licenses, blood dripping down his face, before making a call to get help.

“I formally charged the shooter with Assault, Reckless Endangerment, and Discharging a Firearm across a Roadway, as the bullet that hit my ear had continued on across the road behind me. Obviously not happy with these charges, the shooter explained he was the head of a statewide sportsman’s group!” The officer’s boss actually criticized him for overdoing the charges, noting that he “was not really shot that bad.” The hunter ended up pleading guilty to lesser charges and lost his hunting license for two years.

He Loved His Boys

If the first story about the frog hunter doesn’t deliver the message about the need to be sure of your target and anything beyond it, Chapter 3, titled He Loved His Boys, will do that and probably bring tears to your eyes as well. Quail hunting with his two boys, Jake, age eleven, and Brian, age eight, Tom “was totally committed to his family, his job, his old black Lab, Holly, and yes, hunting.” Tom felt his boys were ready for their first hunt, so in late January, they hunted a farm for quail. And here’s what happened.

As they approached a large brush pile about six feet tall and twenty feet across, Dad could tell Holly was getting “birdy.” She knew there must be quail hiding in this large pile of dead trees and brush. As they gathered around, Holly began sticking her nose into the pile. Dad told the boys to get ready… “Are you ready boys, there’s got to be birds in here!” Dad followed Holly around the pile… Holly stuck her nose into the pile. Immediately a quail exploded up, flying near Holly and then up and straight toward Brian. Brian had his gun raised already and BOOM! He shot at the quail, missing it. The quail had flown right at him.

It just so happened that Dad was directly across the brush pile when Brian took the shot. Due to Brian’s height, the height of the brush pile, and Dad being in full camouflage, Brian could not see where his father was. With the single shot, Dad was struck with one pellet that entered his right eye, passed through his brain, and severed his brain stem. Dad went down. Hearing the crash of his body, the boys ran to see if he was okay, only to find his lifeless body.

More Tragedies and Mistakes.

There are lots more tragedies, mistakes, and accidents here. A duck hunter falls in the boat and shoots his hunting buddy. A step-father, lost in a bog, callously leaves his stepson kneeling in a stream, too exhausted to continue walking, and hikes out without the boy, who passes out in the stream and drowns. Two friends are hauling a feral hog out of the woods when one of them, his gun slung over his back, stumbles – his gun hits a tree and goes off, killing his friend. There are several stories of hunters shot during deer drives. Not all of the stories end tragically, including one about a pheasant hunter who got shot in the buttocks. That guy did have quite a long and painful ride to his home in another state!

And then there’s the final story. The officer who got shot by the frog hunter amazingly gets shot again, by a deer hunter. I won’t tell you the rest of that story but it is sobering.

At the end of each story there are tips about the lessons we can learn from that accident. And at the end of the book, there’s a chapter of conclusions, including a list of the most common causes of hunting incidents, listed in order of the occurrence. Here they are.

Falls from elevated stands; failure to use haul line/safety harness

Failure to point muzzle in safe direction; careless handling of firearms; failure to control muzzle

Failure to observe safe zone of fire; shooter swinging on game outside of a safe zone of fire

Victim beyond target; victim out of sight of shooter; failure to check background; unsafe backstop

Victim mistaken for game; failure to property identify target

Stumbling/dropping firearm; shooter stumbled and fell/dropped firearm

Trigger caught on object

Victim in front of target; victim in line of fire

Loading/unloading firearm improperly

Loaded firearm in or around vehicle; removing/replacing firearm in vehicle/discharge in vehicle.

Conclusion

Like me, you probably think you are a very safe hunter. But I promise you, this book will convince you that accidents can happen to even the safest of hunters. We are only a sudden stumble or a misplaced shot away from tragedy. This book is particularly appropriate for new hunters but even for those of us who have been hunting for decades, it offers sobering stories that will assure that we all hunt more safely this fall. Buy this book, read it, and share it with your hunting buddies.

George Smith

About George Smith

George stepped down at the end of 2010 after 18 years as the executive director of the Sportsman’s Alliance of Maine to write full time. He writes a weekly editorial page column in the Kennebec Journal and Waterville Morning Sentinel, a weekly travel column in those same newspapers (with his wife Linda), monthly columns in The Maine Sportsman magazine, two outdoor news blogs (one on his website, georgesmithmaine.com, and one on the website of the Bangor Daily News), and special columns for many publications and newsletters. Islandport Press published a book of George's favorite columns, "A Life Lived Outdoors" in 2014. In 2014, George also won a Maine Press Association award for writing the state's bet sports blog. In 2016, Down East Books published George's book, Maine Sporting Camps, and Islandport Press published George and his wife Linda's travel book, Take It From ME, about their favorite Maine inns and restaurants.