On the Cheney Incident

In the Spring of 2004, an incident very similar to what happened on Cheney’s hunting trip happened to a co-worker of mine. I blogged it here, but the archives past January 05 are in such bad shape that I can’t get them to load. So let me re-tell a bit of it now.

My co-worker, Dan, went hunting in eastern Washington with a few friends. One of the guys brought along his 12 year old son for his first hunting trip. I don’t remember what they were gunning for, but that is of neither here nor there. They split up into seperate groups of three to four guys and took to their chosen fields with their respective dogs. Dan’s group included the 12 year old.

Near the end of the first stretch of field that Dan was in, the dogs scared up a good group of five or so birds. Each of the guys in the group shouldered, aimed and fired, taking down all but one of the birds. The 12 year old, probably nervous and a bit over-enthusiastic on his first hunt, went past his designated 60 degree field in persuit of the last bird. In fact, he went so far as to cross Dan with his bead when he finally got the lead on the bird and let the shell go.

Dan was hit with close to 115 of the #8 pellets out of a Browning semi-auto 20 guage, from his left buttock to the top of his head at a distance of around 30-35 feet. Dan dropped like a stone with one yell of pain.

The 12 year old went into immediate shock. His father grabbed and secured the shotgun as he ran past him to check on Dan. Dan was lying face down in the dirt and was only semi-conscious. They used their cell phones to call the local emergency services, who arrived 20 minutes or so later. Dan went off to the ERwhere they got the pain under control and did some stitching up of the major damage. Dan walked out of the hospital the next day and came back to work the next week.

The local Sheriff stopped by the hospital shortly after the EMT’s rolled Dan in and asked questions of those involved, including the 12 year old. The Sheriff ruled accidental and pending any civil charges Dan wanted to file, the Sheriff said his investigation was closed.

In the post in the archives, I have a picture of what his arm looked like a week afterward, and while it isn’t overly disgusting looking, it sure isn’t pretty. It looked like an acupuncturist went crazy. I’ll keep trying to find my copy of the pic. I have donated it to my local hunter safety course instructor for his class. He says it makes quite the impression.

There is only so much even modern medicine can do with #8 shot once it is in the body. They can pick the stuff closer to the surface out, but the goodly portion of it has to stay in. This is because the removal of the pellets cause more trauma coming out than they do going in. The one problem with leaving it in is that there is a possibility of one of the pellets entering the bloodstream and clogging a vein or a capillary.

Even after eight months and countless x-rays to find the damn things, the doctors left 55 pellets in Dan.

The kid is still hunting, and I think that his mistake will haunt him and give him a caution for firearms for the rest of his life that even a number of lifetime firearms owners will never have. As it should. Dan and the father are still friends, although to my knowledge, he hasn’t gone hunting with them since.

Dan still jokes about the day he impersonated a patterning board and lost.

I’m not posting this to excuse Cheney or the fella who got hit. I’m only posting this as an informational bit of data.