Mississippi has produced some giant bucks and even a world record. Here are the top six deer on record in Mississippi by category. Brian Broom
When a Mississippi man went on a deer hunt in December of 2017, it started out just like many others. However, within a matter of minutes, the situation became life-threatening.
“I’m 69 years old and hunted all my life,” Randy Seals of Columbia said. “I’m just a fanatic about gun safety. My dad was a Marine, so you can understand that.
“December 16, the weekend after the snow, I went out to a little green field before work. I think we had a little light snow about Wednesday of that week.”
The snow may have been light, but it provided enough weight to break branches off the pine tree that his ladder stand was leaning against.
“They had cluttered up the ground to the point I had to kick them out of the way to get to my ladder stand,” Seals said.
Seals’ .300 Winchester Short Magnum rifle was leaning against the base of the tree. Seals had attached it to a rope to safely pull the rifle up to him before he kicked the branches out of his way. Seals then climbed the 23-foot ladder and settled into the stand. When he began to pull his rifle up with the rope, something odd happened.
“When I started pulling it up, I don’t know what happened,” Seals said. “When I started pulling it up I heard a bell ring. I’m sure there was a bang and a boom, but I just remember that bell ringing.”
Seals couldn’t figure out what had happened until he looked down at his rifle.
Grisly discovery
“I looked down and there was smoke coming out of the barrel and the bolt was half open and smoke was coming out of it,” Seals said. “When I looked down at the gun and saw smoke I looked at my LaCrosse boot and there was a slit in it. When I went to turn around and my left leg wouldn’t work I knew I was in trouble.”
The slit was in his right boot, but it was his lower left leg that had been mauled by the magnum cartridge. The ringing he heard was the bullet striking a metal rail on the stand after exiting his leg. Seals managed to climb out of the stand and used the pull rope attached to the rifle as a tourniquet to slow the bleeding. His frame of mind was strangely calm.
“I never even panicked,” Seals said. “My heart rate never got up.”
He was also not in pain.
“It never hurt until they picked me up to put me in the back of a pick-up truck,” Seals said. “Then it hurt.”
While he wasn’t panicked, Seals knew he was in serious trouble. He called 911 and gave his location and then called friends and family members. Help arrived and fashioned a make-shift litter out of a section of the ladder stand to put him in the bed of a pick-up. From there he was taken to a spot where medical personnel could reach him.
Seals said the sight of his injury was so gruesome, one of the first responders became violently ill. Afterward, he was told the hole through his calf was fist-sized.
“It went through my calf and disintegrated three inches of my tibia,” Seals said. “The nurse said the only thing holding my leg on was a few inches of skin.”
Seals was airlifted to Forrest General Hospital in Hattiesburg where doctors discovered another problem. The bullet had also blown off his big toe on his right foot, which explained the slit in his boot. The trajectory had taken the bullet through his right foot, through his left calf and then blew a hole through a metal rail.
Recovering with a purpose
Seals spent the next 16 days in the hospital. He spent months in bed and so far has undergone five procedures including muscle and bone reconstruction, a marrow transplant and skin grafting. Miraculously, the doctors were able to save his leg and he is walking, albeit unsteadily, today.
How the event occurred is still somewhat of a mystery. Seals said evidence suggests that when he kicked the limbs out of the way, one found its way into the trigger guard. Tree bark found on the safety makes him think the tree or branches somehow moved it into the firing position when he lifted the rifle.
However it happened, Seals knows that if the rifle had been unloaded and the muzzle was pointed down rather than up, it wouldn’t have happened. And he’s telling people just that.
“What I got out of this personally is how fragile we are and how things can change in a second,” Seals said. “The other thing is how stupid it is to do such a thing with as much training as I have.
“People said I’m alive for a reason. I guess the reason is to tell people about it because everyone I talk to about it says they do the same thing. Maybe the calling from this accident is to tell people about it and prevent them from doing the same thing.”
Committee to Abolish Sport Hunting Blog 
Reblogged this on Exposing the Big Game.
LikeLike
I guess that is just a partial Darwin award.
LikeLiked by 1 person
A second runner up, maybe.
LikeLiked by 1 person