NORRIDGEWOCK — A report early Wednesday that a man had been shot during a burglary drew a large police response to a Norridgewock home, but investigators later determined the man had accidentally shot himself, according to the Somerset County Sheriff’s Office.
A 911 call was made at about 3:30 a.m. from a house on the Waterville Road, near the town center, according to the Somerset County dispatch log. Somerset County Chief Deputy Mike Mitchell said the caller indicated the man had been shot by an intruder, who then fled.
Sheriff’s deputies began searching for a “skinny man running in the woods with a gun,” Mitchell said. Police officers from Fairfield and Skowhegan assisted with the search.
The injured man, who Mitchell did not identify, was taken to Redington-Fairview General Hospital in Skowhegan with a wound to his shoulder. The injury was not life-threatening, Mitchell said.
When deputies interviewed the man at the hospital, however, they determined an attempted robbery had not occurred. The man admitted to having accidentally shot himself, Mitchell said.
“We’re not looking for a suspect at this point,” Mitchell said. “It’s been determined that he … wasn’t shot by somebody.”
Mitchell said he did not know what kind of gun the man had or how it might have fired.
A man later contacted the Morning Sentinel to say he was the person who had been wounded and that he had, in fact, been shot by someone else. He said he considered it a private matter and declined to elaborate on the circumstances. He asked he not be identified publicly.
Mitchell said the man had not contacted deputies to alter the account he had given them at the hospital.
The case is being sent to the district attorney’s office for review, he said.
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