A six-year-old girl in Florida accidentally shot her grandmother on Thursday, leaving her with non-life threatening injuries, police said.
The shooting occurred in a car shortly before 3 p.m. on Thursday, when the girl got ahold of the firearm in the backseat and accidentally fired a shot through the driver’s seat, striking her 57-year-old grandmother in the lower back, according to police.
The grandmother drove home — to the 4200 block of Tollefson Avenue in North Port, a city about 50 miles northwest of Fort Myers — and called 911.
Emergency medical personnel airlifted her to Sarasota Memorial Hospital, and authorities with the Child Protection Center, a local nonprofit organization aimed at preventing child abuse, interviewed the girl.
The investigation remains ongoing, police said, adding that “the explanations corroborate an accidental discharge.”
Police Chief Todd Garrison called the incident “an unfortunate example of the importance of gun safety.”
The gun was originally in a holster, in the back pocket of the driver’s seat, beneath a seat cover, according to police.
“Please take appropriate measures to make sure children cannot access firearms,” Garrison added. “This could have been much worse, not only for the grandmother, but for the child.”
The shooting comes a little more than a month after a six-year-old in Virginia purposefully shot his teacher, seriously injuring her, at Richneck Elementary School in Newport News, a city about 30 miles northwest of Norfolk, according to police.
Source: | This article originally belongs to Nbcnews.com
