April 13, 2012
By Josh Ault, WATE.com
TAZEWELL (WATE) – A Grainger County man wants answers after he was shot Monday night in Claiborne County.
The shooting happened in a field on Old Kentucky Road near Tazewell.
Nicky Hayes says he was metal detecting at the time and from out of no where someone shot him with a shotgun.
“I just heard a loud explosion and I look down and my whole arm started to bleed,” said Hayes. “I knew I had been shot by a turkey hunter, I guess. I threw my equipment down and started yelling and screaming.”
Hayes says he never saw the shooter, but knows whoever hit him could hear him yelling. He was able to go to a nearby home and call 911. He was flown to UT Medical Center, and was just released from the hospital on Friday.
“If I couldn’t have got my self out,” said Hayes. “I would have been laying there.”
Hayes say he had permission to be on the land, and that he had been out there metal detecting before. He says the land owner also did not allow hunting there.
Hayes counted 47 pellet wounds on his body. One of the pellets went through his bowel and exited his body Friday. Another pellet hit very close to an artery on his neck, and another came inches from hitting his eye.
Most of the pellets inside of Hayes’ body can not be removed.