FLAGSTAFF TOWNSHIP — A Eustis man died Tuesday night after he accidentally shot himself in the lower leg while bird hunting on a remote logging road near the northwest shore of Flagstaff Lake, the Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife said Wednesday.
Mark Henderson, 57, reported to dispatchers in Farmington at 5:56 p.m. that he had shot himself, Mark Latti, spokesman for the MDIFW said in a news release. Game wardens, Maine State Police, U.S. Border Patrol and NorthStar EMS began searching logging roads near the line between northern Franklin and Somerset counties.
Warden Kyle Hladik found Henderson near his truck at about 7:06 p.m., administered CPR and loaded Henderson in his truck, according to Latti. A state trooper drove the warden’s truck to meet an ambulance at the Big Eddy Road as Hladik and another trooper continued CPR. Emergency medical personnel worked on Henderson for about 40 minutes before he died from his his injuries, Latti said.
Game wardens are still investigating the incident.
It is the first hunting accident of the year, according to Latti.
There are nearly 215,000 licensed hunters in Maine, and over the past 10 years there have been three fatal hunting accidents:
• Peter Kolofsky, 46, of Sebago, shot by a hunter near Hogfat Hill Road in Sebago in November 2011;
• Gerard Parent, 49, of Wales, shot by a hunter off East Road in Wales in November 2012;
• Karen Wrentzel, 34, of Hebron, shot by a hunter on her property on Greenwood Mountain Road in October 2017.
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