A young man was accidentally shot by his father while the two were hunting pheasants over the weekend in southwest Iowa. It happened around 10:30 a.m. Saturday in Page County.
Kevin Baskins, with the Iowa Department of Natural Resources, says 18-year-old Ryan Rearick of Omaha was shot at fairly close range in the back of his head by his father, Christopher Rearick, also of Omaha. “We’re still investigating it, but one of the early reports we heard was perhaps the father may’ve lost his footing going through cover and in the act of tripping, the gun misfired or fired,” Baskins said.
The younger Rearick was taken to a hospital in Red Oak and then flown to Creighton University Medical Center in Omaha. His condition was not being released today, but Baskins said Rearick is expected to survive.
“It sounds like he was pretty lucky,” Baskins said. “In talking to our conservation officers who investigated, it sounds like there were some pellets that hit him in the back of the head, but it probably wasn’t a direct hit from the full load of that shotgun shell.”
Baskins says the shooting likely would have been fatal if the pair had been deer hunting and he had been hit by a deer slug.