It’s always sad to hear about an outdoorsman losing their life while doing what they love. It just goes to show us that no matter how much experience someone has, or how prepared they are, freak accidents happen.
Benny Hollis, 61, was hunting in a deer stand in the Florida Panhandle on February 7, when severe storms tore through the northern Gulf of Mexico. The storm bombarded everywhere from Louisiana to the western part of the Panhandle with strong winds and heavy rain.
Hollis’s wife worried when her husband hadn’t returned from his hunt and went to look for him. When she found him, he was under portions of his tree stand where it had been knocked down.
“Mr. Hollis had been sitting on a 12-foot-high tripod hunting stand when strong winds from the storm uprooted a massive tree which fell on him,” according to a statement by the county sheriff’s office. “Mr. Hollis was found underneath portions of the tree stand when he was discovered and pronounced dead at the scene.”
