Letters to the Editor – letters@svnmail.com
Teen dies in hunting accident
BY PAUL GALE
SVN NEWS REPORTER
ERIE – He was a good boy who loved his mother.
Those were the words used to describe a 15-year-old Erie High School student who died Saturday as a result of injuries received in a hunting accident south of Erie.
David Ian Edwards was pronounced dead by the Henry County coroner’s office in Hammond-Henry Hospital in Geneseo.
With her house full of mourning relatives and friends, his mother Christine Edwards said her son loved music, riding dirt bikes and liked to hunt.
David had a girlfriend and loved the rock group AC-DC. He also loved movies, particularly “Star Wars,” “Lord of the Rings,” the Harry Potter films and “Fast and the Furious,” a car movie.
An EHS sophomore, David wrestled and he had played golf when he was a freshman. He also loved to play baseball.
Christine’s aunt, Linda Jacobs, said David “was a wonderful kid.”
“You couldn’t find a better boy,” she said.
David was hunting rabbits with a .410 shotgun with an elderly family friend when the accident occurred at 8:38 a.m. Saturday at the Big Bend Wildlife Area in southern Whiteside County.
David was shot when the gun he was carrying accidentally discharged, said the Whiteside County sheriff’s department who was assisted on the scene by
Erie Ambulance and Illinois Conservation Police.
A Henry County Coroner’s inquest is pending.
“This is a tragic day for Erie. It is a sad thing to happen,” said Mark Shaheen, owner of Shaheen’s Village grocery store.
Authorities had no additional information about the accident as of press time Saturday night.
Arrangements are pending at the Gibson and Sons Funeral Home in Prophetstown. David’s father, Richard, died in 1998.
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