KEY POINTS:
When Wairarapa farmer Charlie Death heard the grim details of another hunter's death this week, it made him shiver.
As Nelson man Shane Ian Phibbs was beginning a nine-month jail term for accidentally shooting and killing a friend and hunting companion, Mr Death was reminded of how lucky he was to have been in a similar situation and to have lived to tell the tale.
Twenty years ago he nearly bled to death after being accidentally shot by a relative on a hunt in the Tararua Ranges.
"There's not many of us who get hit with a rifle bullet of that magnitude and come out the other side," Mr Death said. He was leaning down, trying to spot a deer through the bush, when he was hit. The bullet went through his right arm and into his thigh, breaking his thigh bone.
Mr Death lay in the bush for an agonising six hours before being flown to Palmerston North Hospital.
"I nearly lost it when I got to hospital. I was lacking in blood seriously. But they brought me back into the land of the living."
Mr Death was in hospital for four months and never went hunting again.
The sentencing of Phibbs, 39, after he mistook friend Bill White for a deer, has hunting groups, police and Mr Death urging hunters to learn from it.
"You have got to identify your target," Mr Death says.
"As soon as you have pulled that trigger, you can't jump out there and grab that bullet, it's too late. It just gives me shivers. Every time it comes around to that time of year, unfortunately, someone gets taken out. And it's just so devastating to hear it has happened again."
Tragedies like this "should" make all hunters stop and think, says Trevor Dyke, of the New Zealand Deerstalkers Association. "And I've got to say 'should', because we still keep having [fatal hunting accidents]."
Last year Bernard Lee was found not guilty of carelessly using a firearm causing the death of William Gillies, who died in bush near Taupo.
The jury in the trial at Rotorua District Court could not reach a unanimous verdict over the shooting.
There is now an average of one and a half deaths every year in hunting accidents. While it may be a small number, the impacts are large.
Bill White's widow Denise has described to the Herald how the loss has wrecked her life and she doubts if she can ever forgive Phibbs.
Dicing with death
* It is estimated there are about 40,000 big game hunters in New Zealand, hunting about seven days each a year.
* Between 1979 and 2001, 36 hunters were accidentally shot dead by other hunters.
* In every case, both the shooter and the person killed were male.
