In a tragic story out of Wisconsin, a woman accidentally shot her hunting companion with a rifle as he was climbing into a two-person tree stand.
The 39-year-old man from Fairbanks, Alaska was apparently handing the rifle to a 35-year-old Wisconsin woman positioned in the stand when the gun went off, according to the Associated Press. The woman was reportedly wearing mittens and grabbed the gun near the trigger causing it to discharge. The man was struck just below the armpit.
It was unclear whether he died at the scene or later at a hospital according to the report. Neither hunter’s name was released or details on whether they were related.
“It’s a very unfortunate case,” Warden Jon King told the AP. “We tell people to never carry a loaded firearm in and out of the tree stand.”
The accident occurred on the first day of Wisconsin’s nine-day gun deer season. The last time a hunter was killed by a gunshot during this season was in 2012. Two other incidents of hunters injured by firearms were also reported last weekend, but none of them fatal. Another man apparently died of a heart attack while dragging a dead dear to his truck.
By Saturday, the Winsconsin Department of Natural Resources sold nearly 600,000 deer hunting licenses, including one to Republican Gov. Scott Walker who tweeted over the weekend that he was in the field but had yet to land a buck.
Photo credit: Dreamstime
