< Back to Previous Page

Deltona News : Youth Gets Shot By Accident

A Deltona youth escaped serious injury while preparing to hunt during muzzleloading season early on Oct. 28 at a camp in Salt Springs in Marion County. According to Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC) law enforcement spokesperson Kat Kelley, 14-year-old Shaun Meeks was transported to Shands Hospital in Gainesville with non-life-threatening injuries. Another hunter, Randall Mitchell, 53, was inside the Meeks’ hunt camp cleaning the barrel of his muzzleloader before taking to the woods.

Mitchell, who lives in Sanford, placed a percussion cap in his gun to discharge any debris in the barrel, not realizing the gun was still loaded from when a friend had borrowed it four years earlier. When Mitchell pulled the trigger, the gun went off, firing the projectile through the front window and striking the youth in the right lower back as he stood on the front porch. Shaun Meeks was released from medical care the next day.

“This is one lucky youth in that the outcome wasn’t worse,” Kelley said. Northeast Region hunter safety spokesman Greg Workman said hunters always should practice the “10 Safe Gun-Handling Practices” taught in the FWC’s Hunter Safety Course. Anyone born on or after June 1, 1975 cannot purchase a hunting license in Florida without first successfully completing an approved hunter safety course. “Even if a hunter is not covered by the hunter safety course requirement, it is a good idea to take the course,” Workman said. “We have hunters return after having taken the course years ago to refresh their memory about in safe hunting practices.”