The woman accidentally shot by a squirrel hunter last week in Morrison County remained hospitalized in serious condition Wednesday in the Twin Cities. 

Carol Wiecks, 52, Somerset, Wis., was sitting at her parent’s cabin last Thursday on Peavey Lake in the northeastern corner of Morrison County when she suffered a gunshot wound to her left side. 

Emergency personnel were called to the residence, on the 10000 block of Peavey Lake Drive, about 5 p.m. Wiecks was transported to Mille Lacs Health System in Onamia and then airlifted to North Memorial Medical Center in Robbinsdale, where Wednesday. 

Witnesses told Morrison County deputies Wiecks had been sitting in a yard swing near the lake when she heard a shot nearby and felt a pain in her side. Deputies located a 17-year-old boy who admitted  he had been shooting at a squirrel and was uncertain what was behind his target. The boy, whose name has not been released, had fired a .22 caliber rifle and the round apparently passed through shrubbery and struck Wiecks about 140 feet away.

Sheriff Michel Wetzel said the boy was shaken by the shooting, which Wetzel described as an accident stemming from a poor decision. Wetzel plans to forward a report to the Morrison County Attorney’s office for consideration of criminal charges.

The Morrison County accidental shooting was the second within a week in central Minnesota. On July 28, an Aitkin woman, Amanda Voller, 32, was struck in the neck by a bullet fired from a .22-caliber rifle by a man who had been shooting. Voller was airlifted to Hennepin County Medical Center in Minneapolis and released a day later. 

The shooting, which Aitkin County Sheriff Scott Turner at the time said was unintentional, was forwarded to the Aitkin County Attorney’s office for a charging decision.