A game called "dodging arrows" left one West Virginia teenager dead on Saturday night and authorities are now contemplating charges against an unnamed juvenile.
According to WVAH-TV, Caleb Fairchild, 15, was accidentally struck in the head with an arrow while playing the game with two other teenagers outside a home in Chapmanville, West Virginia.
West Virginia State Police said that while the incident is being investigated as an accident, an involuntary manslaughter charge is still a possibility.
State Police told WSAZ-TV that the youths were dodging arrows shot from a compound bow when an arrow appeared to have gone astray and struck Fairchild in the head.
"In the front yard they would take turns," West Virginia State Police Trooper Randall Holden told WSAZ-TV. "One of them would actually run across the yard, while another one would shoot the bow."
The Associated Press stated that Fairchild was transported to Logan Regional Medical Center after the accident and then to the Charleston Area Medical Center where the boy was pronounced dead. West Virginia State Police Sgt. C.R. Sutphin said that the Boone County prosecutor's office was being looped into the investigation.
"I've been a policeman for almost 25 years," Sutphin said. "This is the first time I've ever heard of [dodging arrows]. They were just goofing around, thought it was a good idea. It's just a bad decision, if you ask me. … Once we get everything together, we're going to present it to them for a possible negligent homicide charge."
WVAH-TV reported that Fairchild was an eighth-grader at Chapmanville Middle School and that Logan County Schools Superintendent Phyllis Doty provided grief counselors and a pastor to the school on Monday to assist students.
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