No one likes to admit to a mistake that draws serious question to one’s intelligence, but I share this incident in hopes that it might remind us that hunting accidents include a wide range of possibilities beyond accidental or careless discharges of firearms or falling out of tree stands.
It can very well include things like driving out of the woods at night after good light, even if you are on your own farm, where you know the lay of the land as well as the back of your hand.
Even if you have driven around a guy wire to a utility pole on your way into the hunt, it does not mean that linemen have not slipped onto your property in your absence, moved a pole or guy wire, and even wrapped it in bright yellow piping to present a better target for your Ranger, had you gone to the trouble of turning on your headlights. (LOL!)
As with a fall, it is not the way down but the sudden stop that hurts. In my shattered state of reality, I was certain I had hit the 100year-old live oak in the proximity of the short cut I had turned onto to return home from the woods.
Fortunately, I was conscious and coherent, but something was wrong. It was the sudden flooding of my left eye and the futile attempt to stem the flow of blood with my handkerchief that flashed “severed artery.”
The crash had thrown my head into a brace of the plexiglass window, which formed an edge sharp enough to lay my forehead open from the hairline nearly to my eyebrow.
I quickly took stock! I was close to home, the Ranger was still in operation and that obnoxious cell phone raised my farm manager and friend Cliff Bryant on the first ring.
I was at the Wayne Memorial Hospital emergency entrance within 20 minutes, having soaked at least half of a roll of paper towels and a full-size bath towel en route. Dr. Lopez and his professional trauma team were at work in a matter of seconds and had me on my feet again an hour and a half and 24 stitches later.
The irony of this accident is that it occurred after I had followed all the rules that I had learned in my 82 years in the woods: gun safety; orange vest; a climbing harness and tether that secures me to the tree, not the stand, the moment I take the first step off the ground.
I hope that all hunters who read this account of a serious accident related to the hunt will see it as I have: a chance to be conscious, whether young or old, that accidents happen instantaneously and without warning.
When they do, certain precautions we have taken ahead of time determine whether we can survive them or be greatly damaged by them.
Start with having someone know where you are, even if, like me, you like your privacy in the woods.
Be sure your cell phone is charged and operable, even if you have it silenced.
And as I have now promised my family, let your family know when you are safely in position and safely on your way out.
I hope my sharing of this accident, which I am certainly not proud of but did survive, reveals how easily it could have ended my journey. Had I been left unconscious from the blow, I would never have made it to the house or the emergency room.
Good and safe hunting, my friends.
(Editor’s Note: Lindsay Thomas, formerly of Patterson, is a Wayne Countian and former U.S. Congressman. Photo courtesy The Washington Post.)
