From broken back to buck

“It’s a miracle he was able to hunt this season,” said Ashley Bullard Gravel, his daughter-in-law.

Gravel chimed in: “I thought hunting season was over for me.”

It wasn’t though, and just 38 days after breaking his back Gravel bagged an 8-point, 185-pound beauty on family land in Wolcott, a parcel where both of his sons and two grandsons have also shot deer.

“Nice, nice buck, best one I’ve ever shot in Vermont,” Gravel said.

A broken back – Gravel’s official diagnosis was a fractured L2 vertebra in his lower back – evokes thoughts and worries of limited mobility or worse, for the person who suffered it, but Gravel’s doctors told him early on that it looked like a full recovery could be possible.

Gravel broke his back Oct. 10. By Oct. 16 he began physical therapy. His recovery went well, and by the opening day of rifle season Saturday, Nov. 14 he got out into the woods.

During his time in the hospital Gravel’s doctors and nurses kept reiterating how lucky he was that his injury wasn’t more severe and hadn’t caused more long-term damage. When he headed home he was “determined to get better,” Bullard-Gravel said.

Just after his injury, when the situation looked grim, Gravel told his wife “this is not the end of the world, it’s just another chapter in our lives.”

“He was starting physical therapy as soon as he was home,” Bullard-Gravel said, and he’s been making steady progress. “Anyone who knows Marcel knows he’s not usually sitting still, so it didn’t surprise anyone when he wanted to go hunting.”

Gravel credited his doctors and physical therapist. “They got me so I can navigate again. I still can’t run any marathons, but I can get around,” he said.

The hunt

Up until opening day, Gravel wasn’t sure he would be able to head out into the woods. But he tested out his legs on the 12 stairs up into his shooting shack the day before the season opened and was pleased with the results.

“I figured I was good for Saturday morning,” he said. After his traditional opening-day breakfast with one of his sons he headed back to his shack.

“I waited a little bit after daylight that morning, instead of going in in the dark,” to make sure he was sure of his footing.

“I paid for it that night,” after two trips and seven hours of sitting that first day. But, he persisted.

Then, on Tuesday, Gravel made it out to his stand by 5:30 a.m. After almost two hours his buck came into view through the trees.

“I never had a buck on my trail camera, I dunno if he was just wandering through or what happened but he made a mistake,” Gravel laughed. “I knew he had a nice set of horns on him but I couldn’t see them, he had his head down.”

He couldn’t find a good shot and the deer disappeared into brush. Then, at about 70 yards, the buck stepped into another shooting lane.

“He stepped into that, still moving, so I blatted and he stopped for about two-and-a-half seconds and I pulled the trigger,” Gravel said.

“I was a little wary of shooting with the gun on my shoulder, I didn’t know if my back could take the recoil,” he said, but when he saw that set of horns that worry went out the window.

The deer took off after the shot, and although Gravel knew he should wait for an hour before making his pursuit, “I have a hard time waiting.”

But when he made it to the spot where the deer had been, Gravel couldn’t find a drop of blood.

“I found the shooting alley and looked on the ground, saw where he whirled his feet and took off, but I still couldn’t find any blood,” Gravel said. He’d heard the deer crash into the brush after the shot, but he began to worry that that was just “wishful thinking.”

“At that point my stomach got sick, I thought I missed him,” Gravel said. He started searching the nearby area for some sign of blood, and as he crested a hill he saw the buck where it had crashed into a dead balsam tree.

“Drove his horns right into the ground,” Gravel said. Knowing he couldn’t get the deer out on his own he left it there and went looking for his son Richard.

“He did all the tugging, I did all the watching,” Gravel laughed.

Not done yet

After getting the deer out of the woods, Gravel and his son cleaned it, then he and his grandson Alex took it to be weighed in at the Craftsbury Village Store.

“We picked the right place, they winched it right up then laid it right back in the truck,” he said.

Gravel may have filled his tag for rifle season, but he’d still like to get back out in the woods during muzzleloader season next month, and he can still take a deer with his crossbow, too.

“I’ll see how it goes, I had a checkup this week and they told me everything was going good,” he said last Friday.

If everything continues to progress well he’s expected to make a full recovery, with several more weeks of physical therapy.

“I’m supposed to get it all back, my mobility,” he said, although he still can’t lift more than 20 pounds, and only that much if he’s careful.

“So I leave it up to my wife to put the wood in the stove, building her muscles up,” he said.