Florida Man Says Handgun Fired While He Was Clearing It, Striking Wife and 4-Year-Old Daughter
A Florida father was preparing for a trip to the shooting range when one round from his handgun struck two members of his family inside their Deltona home.
His 4-year-old daughter suffered injuries to her chest and arm. The same shot also struck his wife in the leg, according to the Volusia Sheriff’s Office.
Deputies reached the Boxelder Street home around 9:50 a.m. Saturday, Sept. 19. The father was carrying the injured child when they arrived, while her mother was inside holding a towel against the wound to her leg.
Both were conscious and alert. Deputies applied tourniquets to the mother and daughter and placed a chest seal on the girl before emergency medical crews took over their care.
The child was airlifted by the sheriff’s Air One helicopter to Orlando Health Arnold Palmer Hospital for Children. Her mother was transported to HCA Florida Lake Monroe Hospital.
One Round
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The father told deputies he had been getting ready to visit a shooting range and was attempting to clear his handgun when it discharged.
The sheriff’s office said one shot struck both his daughter and his wife.
That account remained the focus as deputies examined what happened inside the home. The agency later said the facts and evidence gathered during its investigation supported an accidental gunshot.
No criminal charges had been filed as of Sunday.
The wording used by the sheriff’s office is also more specific than simply saying the father was cleaning the gun. He told deputies he was trying to clear it, a process meant to establish that a firearm contains no ammunition before it is handled further.
Clearing It
The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives has a separate safety procedure specifically for clearing and unloading firearms.
Its first instruction is to keep the muzzle pointed in a safe direction while keeping a finger outside the trigger guard. The ammunition source should then be removed before the breech is opened and the chamber is checked both visually and physically.
ATF recommends performing that chamber check twice.
The agency’s guidance does not establish which step, if any, went wrong inside the Deltona home. The Volusia Sheriff’s Office has not publicly described the handgun’s condition before the shot, whether a magazine was inserted or the precise sequence of handling immediately before it fired.
What happened in Deltona, however, falls into a category documented in national death investigations.
Thought It Was Empty
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention examined unintentional firearm deaths recorded through the National Violent Death Reporting System in 2022.
Among cases where investigators established the circumstances, 8.1% occurred while a firearm was being cleaned and another 3.6% happened during loading or unloading.
The mechanism can be more revealing than the activity itself. In 20% of those unintentional firearm deaths, someone mistakenly believed the gun was unloaded. That figure includes cases in which a magazine had been removed as well as other situations where the firearm was incorrectly believed to be empty.
Those CDC figures cover fatal shootings and do not describe the outcome of the Deltona case. The mother and daughter were both alive and alert when deputies reached them Saturday.
For clearing a firearm, ATF’s procedure ends only after the ammunition source has been removed and the open chamber has been visually and physically inspected twice to confirm it is empty.
