Timothy Bruce, a 42-year-old male from Ashville, Pennsylvania, died on December 7, 2013, after what authorities described as a fatal hunting accident in Adams Township, Cambria County. He had gone out that Saturday with a nine-member deer hunting party near the 400 block of Seesetown Road. During the afternoon, the group encountered deer, and several hunters began firing.
In the confusion of the deer drive, one round struck Bruce in the abdomen.
Emergency officials were called around 3:30 p.m., and a medical helicopter was initially requested, but it was canceled after the coroner's office was called. Cambria County Coroner Dennis Kwiatkowski pronounced Bruce dead at the scene at about 4:41 p.m. An autopsy found that Bruce died from a gunshot wound to the abdomen, and the death was ruled accidental.
Investigators initially said it was unclear who had fired the fatal shot because more than one person had been shooting. The Pennsylvania Game Commission reconstructed the scene and waited for the coroner's report and other testing before releasing more information. Officials said they were trying to determine whether the shot had been preventable and whether carelessness or negligence played a role.
By February 2014, authorities identified Matthew Scott Nadolsky, then 29, of Windber, Pennsylvania, as the hunter who fired the fatal shot. Game Commission officials said Nadolsky and Bruce had both been acting as drivers for the hunting party, pushing deer toward the other hunters, when the deer unexpectedly ran back toward them. According to the criminal complaint, Nadolsky fired two rounds from a. 270-caliber Remington Gamemaster rifle, and one of those rounds struck Bruce. Nadolsky reportedly told police he knew where Bruce was standing, about 180 feet away, before the shooting.
Nadolsky was charged with shooting at or causing injury to a human while hunting, a misdemeanor wildlife-code offense. Officials described it as the most serious charge available under the circumstances, while also saying the evidence did not point to an intentional shooting. A Game Commission spokesman said that if authorities had believed the shooting was intentional, Nadolsky would have been arrested much earlier.
The case was treated as a tragic and negligent hunting fatality rather than a homicide. Nadolsky faced the possibility of losing his hunting privileges for 15 years, a fine of up to $10,000 payable to Bruce's family, and a potential sentence of up to 18 months in prison. Available online reports did not show that murder or homicide charges were filed, and they did not provide a final trial or conviction outcome.
