Toddler shoots herself in Florida while relative watches American football match
Shocking footage has emerged of a three-year-old girl in the US state of Florida who shot herself while a relative watched a football match.
The incident last Saturday was caught by an in-house surveillance camera, US media reported.
The video shows the toddler running towards a sofa before climbing onto it. She finds a gun on the sofa, which she attempts to pick up.
A man is seen watching something on his laptop when a shot is fired, covering the toddler’s hand in blood.
She was taken to hospital where she underwent surgery. Photos of the girl in hospital show her with a bandaged hand.
It seems the toddler shot herself through her finger, her grandmother, Ms Robin Fuller, said.
The girl was discharged on Tuesday and is in high spirits, her grandmother said.
The toddler was supposed to be looked after by her other grandmother, according to Ms Fuller, who posted the video on Facebook.
The other grandmother is not seen in the video at the time of the incident.
A woman does appear in the video to be sitting on another sofa, but she is reportedly disabled.
The man has been identified as 23-year-old Orlando Young, a relative of the toddler. He left his gun “momentarily” unattended because he was engrossed in the match, a police report said.
Young also told police he had earlier made breakfast for the girl and had watched over her. He was arrested on a charge of child neglect with bodily harm.
Young appeared in court on Monday and is expected back again at a later date for a separate charge.
The incident has left the family traumatised, Ms Fuller said, according to reports in New York Post and Local10.com.
She added that she does not want to send her granddaughter again to the home of the relatives where the shooting occurred.
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