By Don Groves
The Albany Ledger
(Editor’s Note: Tony and Sawyer DeWitt are former Gilman City residents and Sawyer currently resides in Jamesport.)
A South Dakota pheasant hunt last week included a big surprise — both to Albany’s Mike Girratano and about a 300-pound buck.
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Girratano was hunting Oct. 27 with his brother Tony DeWitt, DeWitt’s son Sawyer and Girratano’s daughter’s boyfriend Glenn Hamilton and some other hunters in an Onaka, S.D., cornfield when a 10- to 12-point buck became spooked, crashed through the field and ran straight into Girratano.
“He and Mike hit head on,” DeWitt said. “Both of them went down in a big, old heap. They probably cleared out about a 15- by 15-foot area.”
“As I was walking the wind was blowing hard and the corn was thick and nearly 8 feet high,” Girratano said. “Moments into the hunt, the next thing I remember is sitting in a speeding vehicle with a bloody towel over my face. I have no recollection of why.”
Fortunately Girratano’s injuries were relatively minor — a broke nose, heavily bruised sternum and ribs, two black eyes, a couple of facial lacerations and a hole in his right nostril that required sutures.
“They actually pulled deer hair out of my nose,” he said. “I think I’m lucky to be alive.”
“Our first concern was he had a horn poked through a lung or something,” DeWitt said. “He couldn’t get his breath for a minute or so. He was face down with lots of blood. He started coming around and we made sure he didn’t have any holes in his chest, just one in his nose that required stitches.”
Girratano was taken to the nearest hospital about 20 miles away.
“Over and over on the way to the hospital he kept saying, ‘What happened and where did all this blood come from’,” DeWitt said.
DeWitt said Girratano underwent an x-ray and EKG, was released from the hospital and the hunters, minus Girratano, continued the hunt.
“We got our limit by the end of the day,” DeWitt said. “He didn’t do any shooting but the next day he was ready to go. He wasn’t raring, but he was ready.”
Girratano said his fellow hunters warned him about the buck running toward him in the field but he didn’t hear them.
“The wind was blowing, the corn was rustling, it was very hard to hear,” DeWitt said. “I was on the edge of field and thought a bunch of pheasants were going to be flying out of there because of the rustling. … Imagine just relaxing on vacation doing some pheasant hunting and blam!”
The rest of Girratano’s hunt was largely uneventful, though he did become something of a local celebrity, DeWitt said.
“He was the talk of the town,” DeWitt said. “People kept asking, ‘Is that the guy who got run over by a deer?’”