Blind Idaho hunter stuns Wyoming locals with perfect shot on wild buck

Eleven years ago, a hunting enthusiast was accidentally shot in the face with a hunting arrow and left completely blind.

The near-fatal shot seemingly put an end to 34-year-old hunter TJ Cartwright's passion, leaving him depressed and without inspiration.

'I never really thought about killing myself because I don't believe in that. I got really depressed and down and thought that hunting would never be part of my life again,' Cartwright, who lives in Idaho Falls, Idaho, told Cowboy State Daily .

Yet, years later, with time and loads of practice, the blind hunter would fulfill one of his wildest dreams - gunning down a whitetail deer buck.

Cartwright, whose hearing drastically improved after the loss of his sight, began to sharpen this sense, finding birds' location by sound and slowly started shooting down ducks and geese.

Eventually, with the aid of specialized devices that help an observer line up rifle shots, the blinded hunter finally started on big game again.

Along with a disability group, Wyoming Disabled Hunters, Cartwright and his father took a trip to the Cowboy State where for the first time since the accident, he shot and killed a whitetail deer buck in Park County.

'I dumped him [the buck]. He didn't take a step, my dad told me that he was probably dead before he even hit the ground,' he said, adding that going after a Wyoming antelope tops his list of his dream hunts.

Hunting was all the then-23-year-old Cartwright knew when he was near fatally struck in the face by his girlfriend at the time with a retractable broadhead arrow.

The hunting arrow, set with three razor sharp blades, was spring-loaded and designed to open upon impact to create a wider wound in a big game animal's body.

For Cartwright this meant the worst, as two of the three spring-loaded blades opened when he was struck, causing severe and irreversible damage to his eyesight.

However, in a stroke of luck, the third and final spring failed to open, which doctors believe may have been the difference in life and death for Cartwright that day.

'If that blade would have functioned properly, it would have severed a major artery,' he said. 'It would have been "good night, TJ."'

Immediately after the accident, Cartwright still had his sight as he and his then-girlfriend hiked to the nearest road, where he collapsed before an ambulance arrived.

While he was in the hospital, 'they told my mom and dad that I had 12 hours to live,' he recalled.

'Anybody who needs to be here, you need to get in here now, because TJ's not going to make it through the night.'

Cartwright was then wheeled off into surgery before he went into a coma, only to wake up blinded from a blood clot that crushed his optic nerves, taking his sight completely.

It took ample time and convincing from loved ones to get Cartwright back out into the woods as he did not believe hunting would ever be possible for someone with his injuries.

'I just sat around the house. I wasn't doing anything. I was kind of playing the pity party game,' he said.

It was his father, Randy, that had done the convincing, explaining to the younger Cartwright that he 'knows where to point' and should at least 'give it a try'.

'It was probably one of the best days of my life,' he said of his initial experience back out in the woods.

'I shot quite a bit, and didn't hit any geese, but I had so much fun.'

In light of his inspiring journey, the fervent huntsman helped found The Blind Hunter network, which includes a podcast that he and another blind hunter host.

'I just want everybody to look past the disabilities and realize that it's not right to think that they can't hunt. Just because you have a disability and do things a different way doesn't mean that you can't do it. Everybody deserves to be out there and to have fun,' he said.