It took nearly a half-century, but the bullet that pierced the neck of Vance Skahen III when he was 14 years old eventually claimed the Eagan man's life.

Vance was washing dishes at the kitchen sink with one of his sisters in the family's home on the edge of Grand Island, Neb., in 1964, when he was felled by errant gunfire from a nearby cornfield.

The bullet struck Vance's spinal cord, and it was left in his neck. He never walked again.

He died Aug. 27 of complications related to the injury. He was 61.

Brother Michael Skahen, of Minneapolis, said the fateful shot from a .22-caliber rifle was fired by a teenager playing with friends. Vance Skahen knew the boy but never harbored ill will toward him, the brother said. Police ruled the shooting accidental.

"I was supposed to be the one washing dishes," said Valerie Hall, a sister of Vance's who lives in Burnsville.

Valerie explained that she and Vance swapped chores that day because Vance wanted to dash off to practice pole vaulting. That left Valerie to help do the laundry with a wringer washer, a more time-consuming job.

"I remember talking to him on the kitchen floor," Hall said.

She said he told her a few months later: "'I'm so thankful that I wanted to go pole vaulting and you wanted to switch jobs with me or you wouldn't be here with me.'"

The doctors said taking the bullet out "would've left him completely paralyzed," said Michael Skahen, whose brother Vance was eulogized and buried Monday.

"Today, he would've been walking" if there had been 21st century medical capabilities back then, the brother said.

The Hennepin County medical examiner's office ruled this week that Vance Skahen died from medical complications from the wound.

Michael Skahen said his brother was scheduled for spinal surgery related to the shooting, but developed an infection and soon died.

Vance Skahen studied at Brown College, worked up until the past five or six years as a computer programmer and lived on his own, using a wheelchair.

Along with siblings Michael and Valerie, Vance Skahen is survived by sisters Caroline Naprstek, Pamela Baker, and Suzanne Carlson; and brothers Bradley Skahen and Patrick Skahen. Memorials are suggested to Water for Life (1-800-947-LIFE), which provides clean water by drilling wells in developing countries.

Paul Walsh • 612-673-4482