Happy Valley-Goose Bay Mayor John Hickey is in critical, but stable condition after suffering a gunshot wound to the face.

Hickey was alone in the woods on Saturday checking rabbit snares when the incident occurred. It remains unclear how the gun was triggered beneath his chin. He managed to reach a main road, where he flagged down someone for help.

“Everybody is in shock,” Perry Trimper, the member of Newfoundland and Labrador's House of Assembly representing Lake Melville, told CTV News Channel on Sunday. “John is a very experienced woodsman. He was by himself and somehow the gun has accidently gone off. But he managed to get himself to the roadside where he was rescued.”

The deputy mayor of the N.L. town said in a statement that Hickey remains at the Labrador Health Centre, where he is undergoing treatment.

Trimper called Hickey an enthusiastic community leader who is full of ideas and brings a lot of energy to his job. He said Hickey’s injury is a massive setback for the whole region.

“We’re not sure what happened,” Trimper said. “But he is fighting quite a battle now, and he is going to have a long battle.”