A 12-year-old girl has tragically died after accidentally shooting herself while playing with a gun in her family's South Shore apartment on Sunday evening. The Chicago Sun-Times reports that the child was handling her mother's firearm in a bathroom when the gun discharged, striking her in the abdomen. The incident occurred in the 7100 block of South Constance Avenue around 6:50 p.m., according to the publication.
In a heart-wrenching turn of events, the girl's 11-year-old sister, who was eating in the kitchen at the time, went to check on her sibling and discovered her on the floor, shot. The younger girl then reportedly brought the gun to her mother, who was at that moment giving a bath to her 1-year-old child, in another bathroom and asked, "is this real?" The mother quickly applied pressure to the wound and instructed her 11-year-old to call 911, as the Chicago Sun-Times article detailed.
The victim was promptly taken to Comer Children's Hospital, where she was initially listed in critical condition. However, less than an hour later, at 7:24 p.m., she was pronounced dead. The mother told police that the gun was typically secured in a locked safe in a bedroom, yet somehow it was accessed by the child.
CBS Chicago provided additional context, noting that the gun had been stored in a lockbox within the home. "The 911 dispatch audio reveals that the gun was taken from a lockbox inside the home," CBS Chicago reports. How the young girl got her hands on the weapon remains a mystery, and no arrests had been made in connection with the incident as of late Sunday evening.
