Fulfilling a dream

Teresa Dugger has fulfilled her son’s dream.

A true city girl who never hunted, Dugger endured frosty mornings, bugs, thorns and her fear of poisonous snakes in hopes of killing a warthog in South Africa for her 12-year-old son Zane, who died in an Oct. 6, 2007, car accident.

Exhausted and feeling somewhat defeated, Dugger accomplished her mission on the final day of her five-day hunt. She took the warthog from 174 yards as it slowed from a run to climb a hill.

“I felt like I could conquer the world,” the 44-year-old said after taking the animal. “Zane was always my son who pushed me. He was my challenging child. This was definitely (a challenge). Even in his death, he’s still pushing and challenging me to do things I would never do on my own.”

Her husband, Richard, who hunted the 10- to 12-hour days with his wife, couldn’t have been more proud.

“I was very excited for her,” Richard Dugger said. “She worked hard to get it.”

Zane, like his brothers Zachary and Nicholas, grew up watching hunting shows on television with their dad.

“He (Zane) would always watch the African safaris and dreamed of going,” Teresa Dugger said. “Zane also said if he went to Africa, he would shoot a warthog. I would always ask ‘why?’”

“He said ‘because they’re fat, they’re funny and they fart,’” she continued. “The truth is they are very funny and usually plump.”

Three months after Zane died in the accident north of Bonners Ferry while going duck hunting, Richard and Teresa Dugger purchased a hunt to Africa “at pennies on the dollar” during a Safari Club International auction.

“I was afraid to go. I had never hunted before,” she said. “But I was pressed through a series of events that I should go.”

A registered nurse in the neo-natal intensive care unit at Deaconess Medical Center in Spokane, Wash., Teresa Dugger had never shot a rifle. She practiced a few times at a local shooting range with a non-moving target.

“I liked it and I was not afraid,” she said.

When Dugger headed to Africa, she took Zane’s Remmington .260, and his hunting hat and socks.

The hunt was tough.

“It took five days of hard hunting through stickers, thorny bushes and papyrus. I’m 4-foot-11 and it was 6 feet tall,” she said. “I did a lot of praying. Right where we were walking through, there were cobras and black puff adders.”

Making the hunt more difficult was “not being a good shot.”

“I needed to get a still moment, but with them being so busy . . . .” Dugger said. “On the last day of the hunt, at the last moment, I took a chance. There was one running away from me.”

“I was doing it for my son,” she continued. “He went down and I was amazed. After many tears, I called my mom and told her ‘I did it.’ (My mom said) Zane was there. He shot that gun. He’s up in Heaven high-fiving everyone.”

Dugger, who says her hunting days are done, plans to get a life-size mount of the warthog.