Originally Posted by Huntster
The rifle boot on my snowmobile got all shot up sometime back, and I haven't replaced it.
If ever a story could use some elaborating, that's it.
Me and my snowmobile got peppered by a shotgun blast from a friend while grouse hunting, who had even mistakingly reloaded his gun with 000 buckshot (9 balls per round, each .36 caliber, 68 grains) that he carries in his pocket for the possible shot on a wolf. I took one ball to the head, another to the chest, two through my gunboot. We were 40 miles from the nearest road, the ambient temperature was around 36 below zero, and the wind was nearly howling.
Fortunately, McLaren River Lodge was open for the winter, just two miles away, and they had a radiophone. A chopper was radioed in, I was medivaced to Providence Hospital in Anchorage (a Catholic hospital, too), where my recovery began.
I never lost consciousness, and the praying for my sight began immediately after I realized I couldn't see out of my right eye. After the Troopers were notified and we were waiting for the chopper, I thought it would be good to call Mrs. Huntster before the Troopers did so that she would hear my voice and not worry so much. We did so, and I told her that there had been an accident. She initially thought her brother had wrecked his snowmobile or got caught in an avalanche, but I told her that I'd been shot. After a pause she asked where I'd been shot. I told her in the head. There was a longer pause, then she matter-of-factly stated that if I'd been shot in the head, I wouldn't be talking to her (she figured I was BSing her). I told her that I was being medivaced to Providence as soon as the chopper arrived, and invited her to meet me at the emergency room if she liked, or I'd call her from there when I needed a ride home.
She met me there.
The eyesight in my right eye (gone blank immediately) slowly returned. Within a year, my sight was as good as new, with no surgeries whatsoever. The wound didn't even make my face any uglier.
Everyone involved called it a "miracle." The writeup in the Anchorage Daily News quotes the investigating Trooper saying "Mr. Huntster is a very lucky man."
We joke about that a lot: lucky?
A half inch more to the right and it would have missed my head. A half inch to the left and I'd likely be dead.
Those here who know me just shake their heads, Mrs. Huntster included:
She says the only thing left is a bear mauling. I chew her out when she says it, because I think she's got "bad vibes."
How was the pike fishing?
Slow. In December we knocked them dead; caught almost 40 of them (see photo). There was no snow on the ice then, and Friday there was a foot of snow on the ice. We only caught 4.
We're thinking that the snow makes it darker down there, and that might be why the bite was so much slower.
