FBI agent dodges deadly hot tub before being shot by booby trapped empty wheelchair at property littered with ambushes

Authorities compare home to ‘Indiana Jones: Raiders of the Lost Ark’

An FBI agent was shot by a booby-trapped wheelchair as he attempted to enter a property littered with ambush devices which authorities compared to a scene from Indiana Jones.

Along with a three-man bomb squad, the special agent was called to the home in Williams, Oregon, after a request by a real estate lawyer tasked with selling the vacant property.

The lawyer, Joseph Charter, discovered a sign there warning it was “protected with improvised devices”.

The officers first slipped past a minivan fitted with spring-loaded animal traps, before avoiding a hot tub placed on its side and trip-wired to roll over trespassers, court documents said.

But the agent was caught out by an empty wheelchair after the bomb squad had blasted open the home’s fortified front door, according to a criminal complaint filed in the US district court of Medford.

Fitted with a fishing line, shotgun ammunition and other items, local media reported the chair fired with the slightest push.

“I’m hit,” the agent shouted after being shot just below the knee, according to the complaint. An X-ray found a .410-gauge shotgun pellet in the agent’s leg.

The court records show a host of additional traps were discovered at the 15-acre site, including spike strips on the driveway and a rat trap set up to fire a shotgun round when the door to a garage was opened.

“(It was) much like a scene from the movie Indiana Jones: Raiders of the Lost Ark in which actor Harrison Ford is forced to outrun a giant stone boulder that he inadvertently triggered by a booby-trap switch,” the complaint said.

Authorities said the makeshift weapons were created by Gregory Rodvelt, who was forced to forfeit his property as part of an elder abuse case involving his mother.

The 66-year-old is currently in Arizona’s Maricopa County Jail, where he is in the midst of an assault trial in a separate case related to an alleged armed standoff. He has refused a court-appointed defence lawyer, the Mail Tribune newspaper reported.

Mr Rodvelt had been in jail since April 2017, but courts released him in mid-August for two weeks so he could prepare to hand over the property.

He faces one charge of assault on a federal officer.

In the weeks since the agent was injured, a team of private contractors consisting of former military experts has inspected the property, Mr Charter said.

Additional reporting by AP