SHIRLEY — Officials with the Shirley Police Department (SPD) say a teenage boy is lucky he wasn’t hurt worse than he was following an accidental shooting Monday evening.
Chief Brian Pryor of the SPD said a 17-year-old teenage boy, who is an Eastern Hancock Student, was home in the 100 block of New Jersey in Shirley around 5:25 p.m. Monday evening when he injured himself. Officials received a 911 emergency call for aid saying a person had been shot at the residence.
Officials say when they arrived they found a 17-year-old teenage boy who told officials he accidentally shot himself in the leg, near his knee while trying to catch a handgun as it was falling. Pryor said the teenager was in a room by himself and as the gun started to fall from where it was located, the teen reached out to catch it in midair and accidental pulled the trigger, shooting himself in the leg.
“This could have been a whole lot worse,” Pryor said.
The teenager was taken to Hancock Regional Hospital with the gunshot wound to the leg, but Pryor said it appears the teenager is going to be OK.
Pryor also noted a sibling who was home at the time of the shooting was in another room. Pryor said the gun belonged to a family member but clearly wasn’t locked away safely from the teenage boy or the other sibling there.
“In my view, that is neglect,” Pryor said. “We’ll turn in our report to the prosecutor’s office, and it will be up to that office to determine if charges should be filed, but ‘yes,’ I think someone should be held accountable, but we’ll let the prosecutor decide that.”
Officials from the SPD were assisted on the call by officials from the Hancock County Sheriff’s Department and the Greenfield Fire Territory.
