Hunting and drinking can be a deadly combination and one family in the east says earlier this week, it nearly was.
Four days after being shot in a hunting accident, 16 year old Phillip Dilday is recovering at PCMH.
Dilday claims the man who shot him had been drinking.
In an interview you will only see on WNCT-TV, our Andrew Doud spoke to the young hunter.
"I wasn't going to die." Philip Dilday was on his way out of the woods Monday when he heard a gun shot. "I dropped to my knees, grabbed my chest, felt something warm and looked down and I was bleeding."
He says adrenaline and a desire to live got him back to his feet and to a friends truck.
"I didn't have time to be scared," he says. He was hit with a buck shot round with multiple pellets piercing his body
"One was an inch from my heart, one pierced my lung, one went through the bill of my hat, went through my nose and took out my tooth," he says.
His mother, Mary Frady, said she got a call from her son on his way to the hospital but didn't realize what was happening.
"I heard someone in the background saying hold on, hold on, I'm getting you there," she says.
Dilday says he saw the shooter drinking that day but investigators will not confirm those allegations until the investigation is complete.
"i'm just lucky that my son is still here," Mary says.
I checked with the state Wildlife Resource Commission who is looking into the incident.
They say if you are hunting on private land, there is no law that forbids drinking while hunting.
However, if someone is injured, as is the case with Dilday, the person responsible could face misdemeanor charges.
The severity of the punishment is up to a judge.
We tried, but could not contact the person who Dilday says shot him.
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