GoFundMe Created for Hunting Guide, Client Wounded on Mexico Border

Hunting Guide, Client Wounded on Mexico border.

While guiding an aoudad hunt in Presidio county Texas, a New Mexico hunting guide was shot in the abdomen and seriously wounded Friday night after what appears to have been an attempt to kidnap his clients on the Mexico border.

 

The guide remains in critical condition in a Texas Hospital.    His client was also shot in the arm and is expected to recover.

 

Multiple assailants fired upon an RV parked near a hunting lodge where the party was staying for the hunt.  The contracted hunter and his wife were asleep in the in the RV when the attack began.

 

Walker Daugherty, 26, of Chloride, NM was wounded while attempting to stop the assailants from taking the RV with his clients inside.  He was assisted by another guide, Michael Bryant; the men were staying inside the lodge with their wives.

 

Per a family source, everyone was in bed preparing for an early hunt, the guides and cooks inside the house and the clients in the rental RV parked nearby.  Walker heard voices outside and went to see what the noises were, he witnessed men with guns attempting to take the RV, he then ran back inside to get help.  Walker and Michael armed themselves to defend and protect the client and to attempt to deter the assailants while the hunter attempted to escape in the RV which was being shot at repeatedly.  The vehicle is riddled with bullet holes from the attack and suffered other structural damage.

 

The attack lasted long enough for Walker to run back to the house and get more ammunition, when he was close to the door his sister, saw him get shot and was able to drag him inside the house and away from the gunfire.  The women in the lodge were able to get a spotty cell signal and call 911.

 

The family has been earning a living guiding and outfitting out of the remote ranch for years.   The business had experienced several thefts and had been working with the US Border Patrol to apprehend illegal aliens in the area in the past month.   The theft events and the attack occurred in the United States.

 

The attack has the family concerned that the attack was not just an attempt to rob the property.    They believe the assailants intended to kill all the party.   The attackers were strategically placed around the lodge and the men were fired upon from different areas.

 

The client’s wife, a nurse, was able to help keep Walker from bleeding to death while they waited several hours for a medivac helicopter to take him to El Paso.   It took local law enforcement over an hour to get to the remote scene.  The family says the men and their wives were grilled about the veracity of their account by Law Enforcement and the assailants got away and likely returned to Mexico.  Kidnapping, along with drug and human trafficking, has become common along the Mexico border especially if there are reasons to believe that an intended victim is a person of means.   The family, however, are self-employed outfitters earning a living as guides although the clients were likely the intended targets.

 

Friends have set up a go fund me account to assist with medical expenses and the long recovery process that Walker is expected to endure.  He is uninsured.   https://www.gofundme.com/help-for-walker-daugherty