ARMSTRONG COUNTY, Pa. -- An accident took the life of a hunter sleeping in a cabin in Armstrong County over the weekend, authorities said.

James Schuey Jr., 42, fell from a loft in a one-room cabin in Washington Township and was impaled on a kitchen chair early Saturday, the county coroner said.

The chair had decorative spikes, and one of them pierced Schuey's chest and tore an artery, the coroner said.

With no cell phone service and no land lines, one teenager in the cabin ran more than a mile to a place where he could call 911, and two other boys, including Schuey's son, Travis, kept Schuey alive until paramedics could get to him, the coroner said.

"I wouldn't have been able to leave my dad," said Travis. "If they weren't there to go and call, I would have had to just sit there and wait with him."

"Those boys and Travis, I can't imagine what they had to go through, but I am just so happy they were there, and I just cant thank them enough for everything they've done," said Schuey's wife, Tracy.

"I didn't want him sleeping up there," said Travis. "I just thought of how far a drop it actually was if you would fall."

Schuey died of blood loss after being flown to a hospital, but the coroner called the actions of the young people heroic.

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