Police investigate hunting accident that kills N.L. man in early 60s

COLINET, N.L. – A man in his early 60s was killed when a gun accidentally discharged during a rabbit hunting trip on Newfoundland’s east coast, police said Monday.

RCMP Const. Steven Hatch said officers were called to a remote dirt road near Colinet at about 1:35 p.m. Saturday for a report of an accidental shooting.

“We got a 911 call from one of the people in the hunting party that there was an accidental discharge of a firearm, striking another male in the upper body,” he said from Placentia. “Indications are that it was a hunting accident.”

He says police and paramedics responded, but the man was pronounced dead at the scene on Route 91.

Hatch said the man, from the Foxtrap area of Conception Bay South, was hunting rabbit with others and was on the dirt road when the shooting occurred.

Police are investigating with help from the medical examiner’s office.