(Radio Iowa) – A northwest Iowa high school has confirmed one of its students was the victim of a weekend hunting incident in Dickinson County. According to a “Go Fund Me” page shared by Okoboji High School, Joe Salmon was hunting waterfowl Saturday morning near Lower Gar Lake when he was shot in the head. He was airlifted to a Sioux Falls Hospital where he remains hospitalized. Salmon is considered a local hero after he and several others saved a man whose vehicle fell through the ice on East Lake Okoboji last February. Okoboji High School Activities Director Nick Mulder is also the school’s football coach. “That’s who Joe is. He doesn’t flinch. He attacks everything that’s in his way,” the coach says. “We’re real proud of Joe.”

Mulder says Salmon is an outstanding young man. “A guy that you can see always around the hallways smiling with his friends and a pure joy about him. Everything he does he attacks with passion,” he says. “In running around the track, he wanted to face the best, be a part of the best and was a part of our state qualifying sprint relay that went down to Drake last year. On the football field, we hand him the ball a lot. He would prefer to run straight and over and through you as opposed to around you a lot of times.”

Mulder says besides the Go Fund Me page, there are two local fundraising efforts have already been created to support Salmon and his family. “We had a staff member who designed a t-shirt that you can buy. They are ‘Be a Hero for a Hero’ t-shirts and there’s a picture of Joe that one of our fifth grade students drew because they look up to Joe so much,” he says. “Be a Hero for Hero is obviously relating back to the February events. All that money goes directly to an account that’s been set up in Joe’s name.”

The Iowa Department of Natural Resources is investigating the events that led up to Saturday’s incident.