AUGUSTA (AP) – A 22-year-old soldier from Maine who spent two months as a scout sniper in Iraq was listed in serious condition after he was accidentally shot by a law enforcement officer during a training exercise in Florida.

Marine Cpl. Eric Verhille was shot in the chest last week while working as an instructor for a North Carolina-based company that was putting on a training session for 12 officers from the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission’s Special Operations Group.

Four officers with long guns and handguns cleared one room and entered a second in which a shot was fired and Verhille was hit, according to a report in the St. Petersburg Times.

“He was in a shoot house with live ammunition, and one trainer took him for a target,” said Gary Verhille, the Marine’s father.

The wounded Marine was being treated at Tampa General Hospital.

“Doctors say they’re optimistic because of the condition of his health when he went in,” Gary Verhille said. “He’s still in critical care. He’s lost some of his lung.”

He said his son has been unable to speak, but wrote that he was shot by an M-16.

“He still has shrapnel in him,” said Gary Verhille, a teacher at Gardiner Area Regional High School.

Initial reports said it was unclear whether Eric Verhille was hit directly or by a ricocheting bullet, but Ronda Hemminger Evan, a spokeswoman for the Citrus County Sheriff’s Office, said investigators determined he was hit directly.

Verhille was stationed in North Carolina after returning from Iraq and was scheduled to be discharged on May 24 after four years in the Marines.

The day he was shot, he was scheduled to fly to Maine to see his fiancee, Alana Duquette of Gardiner, graduate from the University of Maine.

Verhille had shared his experience of sandstorms and privations in Iraq in letters last spring to sixth graders at Gardiner Regional Middle School.

AP-ES-05-15-04 1040EDT