![\"Deer](\"https:\/\/cdn.backpacker.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/deer-lick-shelters.jpg\")
<\/p>\nPolice said that one person was transported to the hospital and described the shooting as “accidental.”<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Deer Lick Shelters (Photo: jzaccone (CC BY-SA 2.0, photo cropped))<\/p>\n
Published July 28, 2026 11:15AM<\/p>\n
One person was hospitalized on Monday following an accidental shooting on the Pennsylvania section of the Appalachian Trail, local authorities said.<\/p>\n
In a Facebook post, the Washington Township Police Department said it received a call<\/a> around 6:30 p.m. on July 27 regarding a shooting along the AT, near Rattlesnake Run Road. The incident occurred around mile 1,070 of the trail, 10 miles south of the Deer Lick Shelters.<\/p>\n In emergency radio communications from the time of the incident, reviewed by Backpacker, Franklin County Dispatch described the victim as a 58-year-old male. It said that a child at the scene was attempting to apply a tourniquet.<\/p>\n Police said the shooting was accidental and that the hiker was transported to a local hospital. According to the department, there is no threat to the public; it declined to release further information at this time.<\/p>\n Accidental shootings on the Appalachian Trail are rare, but not unknown. In a page on hunting safety, the Appalachian Trail Conservancy (ATC) said that in 2002 and 2003<\/a>, two hikers suffered serious injuries after hunters shot them during deer season, which runs from October through late January in Pennsylvania. Both hunters faced prosecution.<\/p>\n According to The Trek\u2019s 2025 Appalachian Trail Thru-Hiker Survey<\/a>, just 4 respondents, 1.4 percent of the total people surveyed, reported carrying a firearm on the Appalachian Trail. Carrying a firearm poses challenges for thru-hikers. As Liz \u201cSnorkel\u201d Thomas wrote for\u00a0<\/a>Backpacker,\u00a0thru-hikers who choose to arm themselves have to contend with varying state regulations, safe storage challenges, and the fact that firearms are banned in many facilities along the trail.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Police said that one person was transported to the hospital and described the shooting as “accidental.” Deer Lick…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":254172,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[108404,28,30,29,86016],"class_list":["post-254171","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-pennsylvania","tag-parent_category-news-and-events","tag-pennsylvania","tag-pennsylvania-headlines","tag-pennsylvania-news","tag-type-article"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/254171","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=254171"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/254171\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/254172"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=254171"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=254171"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=254171"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}