When he went blind following a tragic accident, hunter TJ Cartwright thought that he would never hunt again. But he proved himself and everyone else wrong.
The Idaho Falls native took an arrow to the face 11 years ago. The accident left him completely blind. Following the accident, the hunter said he fell into depression.
"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 told Cowboy State Daily. "I just sat around the house — I wasn't doing anything - I was kind of playing the pity party game."
But his father convinced him that he should go hunting. "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.'"
Cartwright embraced his inner hunter. His fellow hunters helped him out with going into the woods. During that first trip, TJ tried to zero in on the sound of the goose and make an appropriate shot. "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.
That was the start. Fast forward years, and TJ began to hone his hunting ability. He quickly started bagging ducks and geese. From there, he got special devices to help him hunt. Recently, he took down a buck in Wyoming.
Hunter Takes Down Buck
Still, the hunter reflects on the accident that left him completely blind. He was out hunting in Utah with his then-girlfriend. Unfortunately, she ended up shooting him in the face with an arrow.
"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. Two of the blades of the arrow struck through TJ's face. One did not. "If that third blade had opened, it would have been 'good night, TJ.'"
The two hiked back to the nearest road where he collapsed. "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. TJ fell into a coma. A blood clot formed in his optic nerves, crushing them and blinding him. e.
"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. "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."
But he hasn't let that stop him. TJ ended up taking down a buck from 125 yards with some help from a guide and his father.
"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.
