Nursing home resident bags a deer
Courtesy photo Art Rohrbach shows off his three-point buck that he killed Oct. 29.
Art Rohrbach, a resident of nursing home at the Mineral Community Hospital, has a little something extra to smile about.
He bagged a deer.
The 69-year-old man has been at the nursing home for several years now, and he said that this is the first opportunity he’s had to hunt since checking into the nursing home.
Rohrbach was out with the Mineral Community Hospital’s activities coordinator, Kathy Jones and her son, Nate Jones, on Oct. 29 when he shot a three-point buck.
Jones and her son have been taking Rohrbach and another nursing home resident, Allen Pospishil, out to hunt several times a week.
“I know that they’ve always hunted, and I wanted to give them the opportunity to do that again,” Jones said.
Jones said that Rohrbach and Pospishil are the only two residents with enough mobility to get out and go hunting, and this year she decided to take a leap and give them the opportunity to enjoy one of their favorite pastimes.
“I wasn’t sure about it at first, but he’s got all of his stuff and gear, so we thought we’d try it,” Jones said.
Jones has taken the deer and butchered it herself, since Rohrbach cannot have the animal at the hospital. In return she has promised to have Rohrbach over to her house once a week for the rest of the year for a home-cooked meal.
“We’re going to have deer steak and mashed potatoes and gravy, and whatever else they want,” Jones said. “If he gets an elk I guess I’ve got him for life.”
Pospishil, Jones said, really wants to nab an elk this season.
Rohrbach said that he has been hunting all of his life, and he is extremely grateful for the opportunity to get out and enjoy one of his favorite pastimes, even in his later years.
“It really feels good to be out there. The first thing you think about is safety though,” Rohrbach said.
Jones said that since the two men cannot get around well enough to go bushwhacking through the woods, they have tried several techniques to get them within range of the animals.
On their first outing, Rohrbach and Pospishil sat in chairs near the low-elevation point of a lake. Then Nate Jones and Gary MacAfee, a hospital employee who has been helping the two men hunt, tried to spook deer down towards the two men.
Jones said that Rohrbach and Pospishil got a little too cold simply sitting out in the woods, so they have opted to hunt from the car and the roadside to keep them warmer.
Hunting is not the only activity Jones takes the nursing home residents out for. She sheepishly admitted Wednesday afternoon that she took three of the nursing home’s men on a trip to Hooters Restaurant in Missoula after doctor’s appointments.
“When someone comes into a nursing home, you give up a lot, almost everything. Especially for these guys that used to hunt. They can’t have their guns. What I would like to do is give them the opportunity to feel like they did when they could do this on their own; feel like a man,” Jones said.
For now the pair will continue to hunt into the season, and with Jones’s help, they might just bag another beast.