Prayers for his family and the shooter !
Can’t even imagine !
I’ve had 2 close calls over the years.
I was a freshman in High School; was hunting with my Uncle and a friend at Wister WA T10-5. On one group of birds, my Uncle called the shot, I stood up and started blasting, only to my Uncle screaming !
My friend had shot 1 shot sitting down. My Uncle had a big Afro/Perm, the shot burned some of his hair ! I thought my Uncle was going to beat my friend to death; He ripped apart his whole side of the
blind !
2nd time was at Rahaugges Pheasant hunting club; I was around 25 years old. The owner of the Masonry company I worked for would buy a shit ton of pheasant every year. Towards the end of the club season he would have a big hunting day. After one of the shoots a few of us were invited to go shoot Sporting Clays; this type of shooting was new to the world and I was dying to do it!
I was in the parking lot in the door of my truck putting my bags on to shoot when a gun went off right behind me. Scared the crap out of me !
The father, Wendell from Florida, with his teenage son who were parked next to me
pulled his O/U out of the case and the gun went off! Funny now, not then , was the gun never made it out of the cab of this guys brand spanking new F250 4x4. Looked like cartoon blast of a gun in the ceiling of that truck.
Ol Mike Rahaugges freaked out on this guy! I never let Mike forget that over the years ! lol !!
Come to find out; that when we were finished with our pheasant shoot there was a bird standing in the field about 20 yards away. Someone said “Grab a gun ! “ Wendell loaded that 12 gauge O/U with 2 shells, handed it to my buddy Brian to shoot the bird. Well Brian killed it; handed Wendell back the gun. It laid on the tailgate for 20 minutes or more with 20 guys standing around before Wendell put it in the case ! Wendell tried to blame Brian for everything!
Never liked ol Wendell much ! So I told him, my Dad used tell me and my brothers to make sure a gun was unloaded before you put in a case, and keep you finger out of the trigger well till your ready to shoot.
Oh and the whole “Safety” thing !