A teenager was treated for a gunshot wound Sunday after what Plymouth Borough Police describe as an apparently accidental, self-inflicted shooting. The teen was taken to Geisinger South Wilkes-Barre with injuries that police say were not life-threatening, and the case remains under active investigation.
Plymouth Borough Police Chief Anthony Gorey said the shooting appeared to have been accidental and self-inflicted, according to The Citizens' Voice. Gorey said both the weapon involved and the exact circumstances surrounding the shooting remain under investigation. No further details on how the teenager came into contact with the firearm have been released.
The teen was brought to Geisinger South Wilkes-Barre, a campus of Geisinger Wyoming Valley Medical Center that runs a 24/7 emergency department and a pediatric urgent care clinic, according to Geisinger. The facility's emergency department opened in July 2018 and coordinates with regional Level II trauma centers for more serious cases.
Open Questions Around the Firearm
Investigators have not said who owned the gun involved or how the teen obtained it, and the source's report notes those details remain unresolved. Under Pennsylvania's Uniform Firearms Act, it is illegal for anyone under 18 to possess a firearm outside narrow exceptions such as supervised hunting or target shooting.
Separately, Pennsylvania's criminal code classifies recklessly endangering another person as a second-degree misdemeanor. Whether any charges will ultimately be filed in connection with the Plymouth Borough shooting has not been announced.
A Borough Already on Edge
The shooting comes approximately five weeks after Plymouth Borough Police charged eight men in connection with an August 8 fight and shooting at the 22nd Annual Plymouth Kielbasa Festival that wounded two people, including a bystander standing on his own front porch, as Hoodline reported in its earlier coverage. Officers had been working festival security nearby when four gunshots rang out near Church Street during that incident.
Chief Gorey, who has led the Plymouth Borough Police Department since being promoted by borough council in February 2018, has now overseen investigations into two separate shootings within roughly five weeks. Plymouth Borough itself is a compact, 1.1-square-mile municipality along the Susquehanna River in Luzerne County with about 5,792 residents, incorporated in 1866 and part of the Wyoming Valley West School District, according to the borough's own resident services page.
Statewide Trends in Youth Firearm Injuries
The incident lands within a broader pattern documented at the state level. Firearms are the leading cause of injury-related death for Pennsylvania youth, with residents aged 15 to 24 three times more likely to suffer firearm injuries than the general population, according to the Pennsylvania Commission on Crime and Delinquency's 2025 plan. Between 2019 and 2023, 1,811 Pennsylvanians under age 24 died from firearm injuries, the commission found.
A separate Pennsylvania Department of Health review of child mortality data from 2013 to 2022 found that injuries are the leading cause of death among state residents aged 1 to 21, with firearm injuries as the single primary driver. Overall child mortality in Pennsylvania rose 20% between 2019 and 2021 before slightly declining in 2022, per the department's report. Nationally, a CDC analysis of death data published in December 2023 found that unsecured firearms in households remain a primary factor behind unintentional juvenile shooting injuries and deaths across the country.
Plymouth Borough has seen this kind of violence touch it before in less direct ways. A 2023 Nanticoke drive-by shooting involved a stolen vehicle. No arrests or charges have been announced in connection with Sunday's shooting, and police have not said when the investigation might conclude.
