Alan Shearing gored by buffalo

Professional hunter Alan Shearing of Charlton McCallum Safaris is recovering in the Millpark Hospital in Johannesburg, South Africa after being gored by a wounded buffalo bull. The incident is related by Buzz Charlton who took over the safari from Alan in his absence, via the Accurate Reloading forum:

"Chad ( Als client) and Al wounded a buff early morning in thick bush. The shot looked good and they both expected to find it dead with in 100 yards or so. However unfortunatly the shot was a little low.

They then followed the old dugga boy for the better part of the day till 3pm where they caught up to it again in quite thick bush. Both Al and Chad shot it and the buff started running paralel to them where upon they both emptied their magazines into the buff.

As bad luck would have it as soon as they both had fired their last rounds the buff stopped and then charged them. The buff was coming directly for Chad who managed get behind a big mopani tree. Al then got the attention of the buff to draw it away from Chad. The buff then went for Al who fell over and was kicking the buffs bosses as it tried to gore him.

Unfortunatly the buff did manage to toss Al but credit to the game scout who managed to put a few shots in the Buff with this AK . Chad then got in the final killing shot. I think the important thing to remember was that this all took only a couple of seconds to play out. It was very unfortunate that the buff ,from running parallel, then charged them just as both Al and Chad finished their last rounds not giving them enough time to reload before it was on them.

I have heard the story from Al, Chad, the trackers and game Scout and from every account everyone involved did everything they could and behaved in a professional manner under extreme circumstances. Had it not been for the fact that Al diverted the buff attention it may well have got Chad and likewise had it not been for Chad and the Game Scout who stood thier ground and managed to shoot the buff off Al it may have been a much worse tale.

Luckily for Al there was a pilot close to camp who diverted and took Al to Harare where he was met by the Mars ambulance. He went into surgery that evening and it was decided that the following moring that Al should go to South Africa where he is now. Rosy and thier two boys, Chad and Kyle are with Al also."

Following some major surgery it seems that Alan is on the road to recovery.

Here follows a photo of the client Chad with the old dagga boy that got hold of Allan. By all accounts it seems that Chad handled himself well in a very difficult situation.