Shot snorkeler, mistaken for rodent, has surgery

EUGENE, Ore. – A man shot in the head when he was apparently mistaken for an animal while he was snorkeling in a river near the Oregon coast is improving, his wife said.

John William Cheesman, 44, of Springfield, underwent eight hours of surgery Thursday to remove shrapnel and bone fragments from his face, said his wife, Shelley Cheesman.

He was listed in good condition on Saturday at Oregon Health & Science University Hospital in Portland.

“He’s doing really well,” Shelley Cheesman said. “The bullet hit in front of his right ear, where the bone is the most dense. It just fragmented and didn’t go into his brain.”

Cheesman owned Seasports Dive Shop in Springfield from 1983 to 2003.

Douglas County sheriff’s deputies have charged William Roderick, 60, of Reedsport, with assault, being a felon in possession of a firearm, and possession of methamphetamine and marijuana.

Roderick was being held at the Douglas County Jail in Roseburg.

Deputies said Roderick told them he thought Cheesman was a large rodent called a nutria swimming in the Smith River near Reedsport and shot at him with a .22-caliber rifle from the deck of a friend’s riverfront home last Tuesday.

Cheesman was in the river looking at different species of fish, his wife said. “He said he was swimming along, and he felt he just got hit with a sledgehammer,” she said.

Cheesman swam to the shore and yelled for help. Two men in a boat came to his aid. One of them was Roderick.

The men called 911 and drove Cheesman to an ambulance.

“I do give him credit for helping him,” Shelley Cheesman said of Roderick.

Cheesman is an avid freediver who offers charter boat services for tuna, halibut and salmon to scuba and freediving spearfishermen.

In freediving, also known as breath-hold diving, swimmers hold their breath under water for as long as two minutes while stalking prey with a spear.

Cheesman speared a 210-pound yellowtail tuna off the coast of Mexico last February.