3-year-old boy dies after accidentally shooting himself in Saint Louis
ST. LOUIS COUNTY (KMOV.com) – A young boy accidentally shot himself at a North County apartment complex, police say.
St. Louis County police said 3-year-old Rodney March III was at home with his mother and father when he accessed an unsecured gun in a bedroom and accidentally shot himself in the 9500 block of Jacobi shortly before noon. After the shooting, his mother started driving the child to the hospital and encountered a police officer near a Family Dollar store in the 9800 block of Halls Ferry Road.
The officers began to perform medical assistance to the child, but realized time was short.
“A decision was made based on this child’s injuries that we could not wait for an ambulance,” St. Louis County Police Chief Jon Belmar. “One police officer drove to the hospital, two police officers were in the back seat, and they were able to provide medical intervention for this child.”
After arriving at a nearby hospital, the boy was airlifted to another hospital.
Police said the child was later pronounced dead.
“It is beyond the pale and heartbreaking when we lose a child to anywhere in the communities we live in,” said Belmar said. “I’m tremendously grateful to the police officers and the manner in which they handled this investigation and the urgency they approached it with. I’m sorry their interventions and actions didn’t make a more positive outcome in this.”
Police rule the child’s death as accidental.
A wave of gun deaths across the St. Louis area has left at least 15 children, all under the age of 16, and a young mother dead since early May. Read their stories here.
News 4 has a crew on the scene and will update this story as information develops.
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