Earlier this fall, a hunter shot his first archery bull elk deep in the northern Idaho backcountry—and then accidentally stabbed himself in the leg while processing his kill. It’s the kind of freak accident that could befall any hunter. Here’s how it went down and the lessons from the harrowing experience.
Benjamin Wardell of Post Falls, Idaho, had been archery hunting for five or six years without accomplishing what many Western hunters consider to be the pinnacle of big game bowhunting: tagging a bull elk. On the second weekend of September, Wardell took his dirt bike up a ridge on rugged public land in Northern Idaho for a short hunt. On the morning of September 7, he hiked down from the ridge, located two bulls, but couldn’t get in range. He decided to hike back to his bike and head home to get ready for the work week.
“As I got back up to the top of the ridge, I heard this bull rip off a bugle less than 100 yards from me,” Wardell told *MeatEater. “I was like, ‘no freaking way!’”
Wardell was able to call the bull into range and took a shot at 10 yards with the bull quartering toward him. He shot it behind the shoulder, and the bull took off. Wardell knew he’d made a good shot on the elk but struggled to find blood. After three hours of searching, he spotted antlers sticking from a rocky area about 200 yards from where he shot it.
“I was super thankful and pumped that I found him,” Wardell said. “He was already stiff and covered in flies.”
Wardell rushed to field dress the bull since it was a hot day, and he didn’t want the meat to spoil. Having worked at a game processor in South Dakota, Wardell said he feels particularly comfortable skinning big game animals. But this time, something went awry.
“I was down on my right knee with my left knee straight and kind of downhill,” he says. “I was trying to open up the neck a bit. I was pushing my blade toward the skull on the underside of the neck when the knife slipped out. I stabbed that thing right into my leg. Instantly, my pant leg started turning red.”
Thankfully, Wardell didn’t hit an artery, and his pack with his med kit was right next to him. He quickly got out QuickClot and a tourniquet. He pushed the QuickClot into the open wound and used his hand to apply pressure with the tourniquet to limit the bleeding. But every time his hand slipped, the bleeding started again.
“It wasn’t squirting out like in the movies,” he says. “It was more like a glass of water being dumped out.”
Unable to move without bleeding profusely, Wardell called for help. His Garmin wouldn’t send out the SOS, but his iPhone 15 did. Then the waiting began. At one point, Wardell passed out. When he woke up, he was bleeding again.
“I was going through a psychological battle, like ‘you can’t die out here,” he said. “I was yelling at myself not to pass out again, being a weirdo. I was lying beside this dead elk, and there were flies and hornets everywhere.”
Wardell’s body went into shock, and he started shivering. But he stayed alert. Three hours after calling the SOS, a chopper from Two Bear Air Rescue arrived. Two Bear Air Rescue provides no-cost search and rescue support in Montana, Idaho, Eastern Washington, and Eastern Oregon. One of Two Bear’s staffers put a compression bandage and light tourniquet on Wardell’s wound, then helped hoist him into the helicopter.
The chopper pulled him from the backcountry and dropped him off with emergency services in a nearby town. Wardell was then transferred to Kootenai Health for treatment. In the meantime, his wife had rallied several of his buddies, who arrived at the scene of the accident. They collected his gear, finished field dressing the elk, and packed out all the meat, which meant a lot to Wardell.
“This was my first archery bull. It was a big deal that I finally freaking killed one. Then I was lying beside it for hours thinking I was going to lose the whole thing,” he said. “I was super fortunate I had some friends able to drop what they were doing to help out, and that my wife was a freaking stud and organized it.”
Lessons from the Harrowing Experience
While the harrowing experience turned out OK considering the circumstances, Wardell said he would do several things differently in the future.
“I was rushed. I felt the pressure of trying to get this animal cooled off, so I didn’t lose the meat,” he said. “There was no reason for me to rush and push it. And I wasn’t paying enough attention.”
Additionally, Wardell says he plans to make improvements to his medical kit—and purchase a new tourniquet that he can better operate with one hand; the one he had with him required keeping pressure on it to maintain tension, which made for a dangerous situation when he feinted.
“If the knife hit four to six inches one way or the other, I might not be having this conversation right now. I don’t know if I would’ve been able to get the bleeding under control if I hit an artery,” he added. “It makes you consider if it’s worth hunting alone. That’s typically what I do, but it would’ve been way different and easier if I had someone else with me who could help.”
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