Arkansas Game and Fish Commission said Thomas Alexander, 66, went to check on a buck he shot with a muzzleloader when the animal speared him, KYTV reported.
"I don't know how long he left it there, but he went up to check it to make sure it was dead. And evidently, it wasn't," Keith Stephens, agency spokesman, told KYTV. "It got back up, and he had several puncture wounds on his body."
Alexander was hunting by himself. He was able to call his family, who called for help. Alexander was taken to a hospital where he died.
Wildlife officials are warning hunters to leave a deer that has been shot for 30 minutes before going near it.
"When you get up there, be really careful around it because it may not be dead," Stephens told KYTV. "But if you let them lay there for a while and they don't move, and he may have done that. We just don't know."
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