Local author's book published
ST. REGIS – On a snowy night in St. Regis, two days after Christmas Day in 1976, 26 year old Mineral County Sheriff’s Deputy Bill Sansom answered a call that would forever alter the course of his life.
Sansom was responding to a disturbance call regarding vandalism to some logging trucks in St. Regis. Someone had slashed tires on the logger’s trucks and they were trying to get home after a long day of work. After calming the enraged loggers, Sansom followed tracks left in the freshly fallen snow which led him to a small camper in a nearby trailer park.
The young deputy stepped onto the small porch and knocked on the door. What happened next changed Sansom forever and turned him into what he is today.
“The first shot caught me in the hip,” Sansom said. “The second one hit me in the chest, collapsing my left lung. The third shot ricocheted and hit me in the leg. It just barely clipped the femoral artery. I was taken to Missoula and was in pretty rough shape. The doctors weren’t sure I was going to live.”
Sansom did live and now he has authored a book that includes a chapter describing the experience and his long road to recovery along with a compilation of other articles about life, family, friends, the natural beauty of Mineral County and his favorite pastime, hunting.
After the shooting, Sansom was forced to retire from law enforcement, a job he said he loved dearly, due to lingering health problems. That’s when he decided to write.
In addition to his day job as an official with the Montana Highway Department, Sansom has had hundreds of articles published in numerous magazines during a literary career that has spanned over two decades.
He has written about hunting, the outdoors and other various topics. In 2002, he won best feature article from the Minnesota Magazines and Publications Association for a piece entitled, “Elk in the Black.” Sansom said his affinity for writing developed at a young age.
“I’d always had a love of writing since the eighth grade,” Sansom said. “I actually wrote for the Mineral Independent for awhile. After that I started getting articles published in magazines.”
While a lifelong outdoors enthusiast having been raised that way by his father Harry Sansom, Bill was almost kept from his passion of hunting for the rest of his life because of the shooting.
“My leg was blasted apart,” Sansom said. “The doctors told me they might have to take my right leg because of the damage. I decided they weren’t going to take my leg. I decided I was going to prove to them my leg was still functional.”
And he did. The doctors allowed Sansom to keep his shattered leg and he spent the next several weeks in the hospital and even more weeks undergoing extensive rehabilitation. But, with the support of family, friends and a desire to get back to the forests of Mineral County, he made a full recovery. Eventually, nine months later, Sansom returned to the forest and when he did, something happened that put the shooting into perspective for the young man.
“On this particular day, I was driving up one of the mountain roads around here and a bunch of elk ran across the road,” Sansom said. “They were being chased by this big bull. I bailed out of the truck but I couldn’t follow them. I sat down and I heard this other bull, a satellite bull. I did a little chirping and he came out and I got him.”
The perspective described by Sansom came next during a moment of reflection on his first time back in the woods of Mineral County.
“That bull was not looking to die when he came out of the woods,” Sansom said. “When I responded to that call, I wasn’t looking to die either. I had my whole life ahead of me. It was his time but it wasn’t mine.”
Sansom’s book, “Not Looking to Die,” is available for sale at several Mineral County locations including Stang’s Grocery Store, the Silver Dollar and the Oasis in Haugan, the Trophy Taker Archery Pro Shop in Plains and the St. Regis Travel Center gift shop.