david

Seven-year-old at Time of Shooting
with Brother Ryan
Shot: February 27 1996
Wingett Run Ohio

The end of the gun hit our couch and the gun went off

David: "We were in the house waiting for the school bus to come. Me and my brother got one of my dad's guns out. He had gone hunting that previous night and he did not unload the guns or put the safeties on, he put it in the gun cabinet and he didn't lock it. He left early that morning. Me and my brother got the gun out; I was looking at it. My back was toward my brother, he took the gun away, and when he did he lost his balance and fell. The end of the gun hit our couch and it went off, it went through the glass in the gun cabinet and then it hit me, in the back, on my left side. I knew I'd been shot, I just didn't think it was that bad. I just laid on the floor while my brother went to get help. I thought he went to school until he walked back in. I was thinking, my mom's going to kill me if I don't get on the school bus. I remember them coming in with the stretcher. I remember waking up in the hospital. I don't remember the first six surgeries, but I remember the rest. I try not to think about it. Things aren't too bad. I don't exactly have a normal life; I really don't know how it changed my life."

All I saw was the gun cabinet door open, broke

Louise (David's Mother) : "The boys were alone. I went to work at 4:30 that morning. Ryan called me at work and said, `David's hurt and it's bad.' When I got home I didn't know what happened. I just went to the kitchen; if I'd a gone all the way around I would have seen all the blood on the floor. All I saw was the gun cabinet door open, broke. I thought, he got cut by the gun cabinet. I never dreamed he was shot. They did the first surgery, then they med flighted David to Columbus. He was still bleeding inside. When he got to Columbus they had to do another surgery, because his artery was still open. He was in ICU for four days and they put him in a regular room and he couldn't walk or eat. One day he was waiting for an MRI, I was standing there holding his hand, and he said, `Mom, I'm just going to give up, I'm too tired to fight anymore.' I said, `You're not giving up. I come in here with you and we're going to walk out together. You're going to get well.' It took us seven years, but he's well.

It opened him from his belly button back to his spine

'The bullet was a twelve gauge deer slug. If you can look at a seven-year-old, about sixty-five pounds, it opened him from his belly button back to his spine. It took out his kidney, half his colon, twenty percent of his large and small intestines, his pelvic bone was broke and his hip bone. It damaged the abdominal wall. He can't hold his arm up over his head because they had to cut out muscle under his arm and attach it to his hip to protect the intestine. It took two years for everything to grow back. He has a very thin line of skin over his abdomen from his belly button to the middle of his back. When good skin did grow back, having no muscle there, when he would walk, that intestine was just rubbing against his thin skin. He can take gym only if he has a turtle shell around him, if he gets hit the wrong way he could die. His colon hasn't healed since the accident. So far he's had eighteen surgeries and another one's scheduled."