Stones in boots save shot hunter

Man luckily bending down when mate fired bullet thinking headlamp was deer’s eyes.

A hunting accident that left a young farm worker with a gunshot wound across his back has been criticised by an outdoor advocacy group as another needless case of "mates shooting mates".

Max Verschuuren was out spotlighting near Whakatane on Saturday night and was half way up a slope trying to locate one of his kills when a mate back at their ute mistook his headlamp for a deer's eyes and blasted a hole in his back with a .270 rifle.

The 21-year-old said from his hospital bed yesterday that had he not been bending over emptying stones from his boots, the bullet probably would have struck him through the chest and killed him.

The impact was like being smashed across the back with a "hot, sharp metal rod", he said.

"The next thing I was thinking was, holy s**t, I've been shot."

Mr Verschuuren then screamed to the other three adults and two youngsters in the party that he'd been shot, before tumbling down the hill toward a friend at the bottom.

"They were just all freaked out ... one of my mates came running straight down the scrub and got to the other side waiting for me, while the other boys, I could just hear them yelling and screaming.

"None of us really knew how bad it was and I didn't want to know either, otherwise I would have gone into shock."

After his friends removed his blood-soaked clothing, doctors were able to clean and treat his wound with stitches.

His father, a firearms instructor, was shocked to receive a midnight phone call from his son to tell him the news.

The friend who shot him had visited him in hospital was feeling "real cut-up" over the incident and hadn't slept since, Mr Verschuuren said. But he didn't hold any grudge and considered that both of them had been in the wrong place at the wrong time.

"I said to the police I didn't want to press charges but they said it's not up to me at the end of the day, it's up to the justice system."

Police were still investigating the case last night and could not say whether charges would be laid.

Mr Verschuuren did acknowledge the incident had come very close to tragedy, and he wanted it to be a lesson to other hunters.

"Just remember the seven rules of the Firearms Code - the main one being identifying your target beyond all doubt ..."

Mountain Safety Council firearms and hunter safety programme manager Nicole McKee said the shooter had broken several of the seven rules - namely not checking his firing zone and identifying his target.

"We are finding over and over again that we've got mates shooting mates, and there's just absolutely no need for it.

"One of our sayings is no meat is better than no mates, and our guys and hunters have to look after each other when they go out - when an incident like this happens, they haven't done that."