After he was accidentally shot in the face with a hunting arrow and left completely blind 11 years ago, Tj Cartwright thought exactly what many people might assume — that he’d never go hunting again.
“I never really thought about killing myself because I don’t believe in that. But 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.
‘Give It A Try’
He credits his father, Randy — who now lives in Wyoming — for finally snapping him out of it.
“I just sat around the house. I wasn’t doing anything. I was kind of playing the pity party game,” Tj said.
“Then one day, my dad said, ‘We’re going goose hunting, do you want to come?’ “I said, ‘Dad, I can’t hunt.’ And he was like, ‘Why not, Tj? You know where to point, you should come give it a try.’”
So, he decided to go out and at least give it a try. Randy and the other hunters with them made sure things stayed safe. Tj did his best to zero in on the sound of the goose wings and honking to calculate his shot placements.
“It was probably one of the best days of my life. I shot quite a bit, and didn’t hit any geese, but I had so much fun,” he said.
He was hooked on hunting again.
In time and with practice, he sharpened his skills at finding birds’ location by sound and started dropping ducks and geese.
And, with the aid of special devices that help an observer line up his rifle shots, he started hunting big game again. He recently went hunting in Wyoming for the first time and shot a whitetail deer buck in Park County.
‘Tj’s Not Going To Make It Through The Night’
Tj was 23 when he and his then-girlfriend went out bowhunting for deer in Utah, and she got a shot opportunity.
She was tracking (aiming at) a deer, and she tracked it a little too far, so when she released the arrow, it hit me right in the face,” he said.
The arrow was a retractable broadhead, with three razor-sharp blades.
The blades on such arrows are spring-loaded, and designed to open upon impact – creating a wider wound channel in a big game animal’s body.
When the arrow struck Tj’s face, two of the blades sprang open, but the third one failed.
He considers that to be a miracle, because if that blade would have functioned properly, it would have severed a major artery.
“If that third blade had opened, it would have been ‘good night, Tj,’” he said.
Immediately after the accident, he still had his sight. So they hiked back out to the nearest road, where Tj collapsed before an ambulance arrived.
While he was in the hospital, “they told my mom and dad that I had 12 hours to live. They told them, ‘Anybody who needs to be here, you need to get in here now, because Tj’s not going to make it through the night,’” he said.
‘Everything’s Going To Be OK’
Tj was taken into surgery and went into a coma.
So he didn’t know that a blood clot had formed over his main optic nerves. The surgeons couldn’t safely remove it, and the clot crushed the nerves, taking his sight completely.
He believes that his late grandfather came to visit him in a dream state.
“When I was in my coma, I had a dream that I was up on the mountain with my grandpa, and we were looking for some elk. And he took my hand and told me, ‘Everything’s going to be OK. Everything’s going to be OK,’” Tj said.
He said he takes that to mean that his grandfather was trying to reassure him and prepare him for the awful shock of waking up blind.
“When I woke up, and I couldn’t see, I remembered my grandpa, and I wasn’t nearly as freaked out as I could have been,” he said.
‘There Is No Heart’
Tj started hunting again about a year after losing his sight.
He said that it is true that when a person loses their sight, their hearing gets sharper, at least in his experience. And that helped him with bird hunting.
For big game hunting, he uses a device that attaches to the scope on a crossbow or a rifle. It transmits the sight picture to the other person’s cell phone, so they can help the blind hunter line up the shot.
Since returning to hunting, Tj got two mule deer with his crossbow. But he really wanted to get a whitetail buck.
The opportunity finally came last month, through a trip arranged by Wyoming Disabled Hunters. A guide helped Tj and Randy find a nice buck. And Randy helped his son line up the rifle shot, at 125 yards.
“It 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,” Tj said.
He has a tradition of cooking and eating the deer’s heart after a successful hunt.
But this time around, his father had some bad news for him.
“He told me, ‘Tj, there is no heart,’” because the bullet had destroyed it, he said.
Tj said he enjoyed his time in Wyoming, and can’t wait to return. Going after a Wyoming antelope tops his list of dream hunts.
The Big ‘Why’
After his own journey back into hunting, Tj encourages others with blindness or other disabilities to take the same path.
“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.
He helped found The Blind Hunter network, which includes a podcast that he and another blind hunter host.
Inspiring others to overcome challenges has become his mission.
“It’s just something I think God would want me to do. I think that’s why I’m still alive,” he said.
He still feels guided and cheered on by his grandfather, as well as a close friend of his who was killed in an ATV accident when they were teenagers.
“I think that’s what they want me to do – to make the world a better place. To show people that just because you have a disability, that doesn’t mean you should be lazy and not do things,” Tj said.
And the loved ones who are still on earth with him are also an inspiration.
“I think that’s the big ‘why’ for me. I do it for my friends and family,” Tj said.
Mark Heinz can be reached at mark@cowboystatedaily.com.
