What started out as an ordinary hunting trip for Robbie Ripplinger ended with him being rushed to hospital after being shot in the gut.
On Monday, Ripplinger, 32, who lives on a farm near Montmartre, was out with a hunting party of 10 about 16 kilometres south of Candiac. They were hunting white-tailed dear, he said.
"We organized a push on a quarter of land," he said. "Three of us walk through the trees. The other guys basically surrounded the perimeter. We pushed all kinds of deer out to the south, where my wife was sitting."
Ripplinger said a group of vehicles pulled up and asked his wife why she wasn't shooting. He said she told them it was because all that was coming out were small deer and does. She also told them they shouldn't be shooting into the bush because walkers were coming through.
"So the guy drives away and drives down the road," he said. "He passes another one of our point men and turns around and parks behind one of my friends, jumps out of the truck and shoots me. There was lots of deer running."
Ripplinger said he didn't realize the other vehicles had approached so he wasn't sure what was going on then. He described getting shot as "10 times harder than a paintball."
"I stood there, holding my gut, but there was no blood on my hand," he said. "I thought, 'Well, what if he shoots again. I better lay down.' I didn't know if somebody was trying to kill me or what and then I thought if I'm laying down and my friends don't find me right away, I could bleed to death here, so I stood up."
Ripplinger said he yelled for about five minutes before a friend found him and called a truck over so Ripplinger could be loaded in it.
He was rushed to hospital in Regina. RCMP received a 9-1-1 call about the incident at about 3:15 p.m. on Monday. EMS picked up Ripplinger on Highway 48 between Odessa and Kendal. He didn't need surgery or stitches, he said.
Ripplinger described himself as "very lucky," noting the other hunter was shooting a large calibre gun. The bullet entered in the centre of his gut and exited in front of his ribs, he said.
He also said he is frustrated about the other hunter's lack of safety and hunting etiquette, noting the distance between him and the hunter who shot him was about 200 metres and that Ripplinger was wearing red-coloured clothes.
"He had to have seen me," he said. "You don't just point at a deer and shoot. You identify it. He had no reason to be there. He was told not to be in there. There was no etiquette being used at all. We were hunting with the land owner. They had no permission.