Target shooter hits herself

A 62-year-old Whitman County woman shot herself in the head Thursday evening while target shooting with relatives.

Sheriff Brett Myers said the woman’s injury didn’t appear to be life-threatening, but she was airlifted to Deaconess Medical Center in Spokane. Her condition was not immediately available.

Myers said the incident remained under investigation, but it appeared the shooting was accidental and rooted in the victim’s lack of experience with firearms. She apparently was preparing to fire a .380-caliber semiautomatic pistol when it discharged, grazing her head above her right ear.

The woman was talking coherently when emergency workers arrived about 7 p.m., the sheriff said.

Myers said the woman lives in Albion, Wash., and was visiting relatives in the Oakesdale area, about 30 miles away. She was with a group that was target shooting in a rock pit about a mile south of Oakesdale.