Local Boy dies at MA Gun Club Event

Discussion in 'General Discussion' started by RightHand, Oct 27, 2008.


  1. RightHand

    RightHand Been There, Done That RIP 4/15/21 Moderator Moderator Emeritus Founding Member

    Boy, 8, accidentally kills self at gun show

    Child was firing an Uzi submachine gun under adult supervision at fair


    The Associated Press
    updated 1:54 p.m. ET, Mon., Oct. 27, 2008

    WESTFIELD, Mass. - An 8-year-old boy died after accidentally shooting himself in the head while firing an Uzi submachine gun under adult supervision at a gun fair.

    The boy lost control of the weapon while firing it Sunday at the Machine Gun Shoot and Firearms Expo at the Westfield Sportsman’s Club, police Lt. Lawrence Vallierpratte said.

    Police said the boy, Christopher Bizilj of Ashford, Conn., was with a certified instructor and called the death a “self-inflicted accidental shooting.”

    “The weapon was loaded and ready to fire,” police Lt. Hipolito Nunez said. “The 8-year-old victim had the Uzi and as he was firing the weapon, the front end of the weapon went up with the backfire and he ended up receiving a round in his head.”

    Christopher died at Baystate Medical Center.


    The boy’s father and older brother were also there at the time, a gun club member and school official said. Francis Mitchell, a longtime member and trustee of the club, said he was told the boy’s father was supporting his son from behind when the shooting happened.


    “My reaction is shock,” said Mitchell, who lives down the street from the club. “In the last five years, there has never been a problem or a bad accident. I’ve been sick all night.”


    The father, Charles Bizilj, is the medical director of emergency medicine at Johnson Memorial Hospital, in Stafford Springs, Conn.


    Although the death appears to be an accident, police and the Hampden district attorney’s office were investigating, officials said.


    It is legal for children to fire a weapon if they have permission from a parent or legal guardian and are supervised by a properly certified and licensed instructor, Lt. Hipolito Nunez said.


    Those conditions were met in this case, he said. He declined to release the instructor’s name.


    The event, run in conjunction with C.O.P Firearms and Training, said in an ad that people are allowed to fire weapons at vehicles, pumpkins and other targets at the event.


    The club said it would offer machine gun demonstrations and rentals and free handgun lessons.


    “It’s all legal & fun — No permits or licenses required!!!!” reads the ad, posted on the club’s Web site.


    Officials with the firearms group could not be reached for comment. Messages left on answering machines for the club and the C.O.P. group were not returned Monday.


    The sportsman’s club was founded in 1949 and describes itself on its Web site as promoting “the interest of legal sport with rod, gun, and bow and arrow, both directly and through training.”


    It has eight firing ranges as well as archery and fishing facilities located on 375 acres in Westfield, about 100 miles west of Boston.


    Copyright 2008 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

    URL: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/27399337/
     
  2. Seacowboys

    Seacowboys Senior Member Founding Member

    A couple were killed when the driver of a minibus veered into their car after being stung by a bee.
    David Johnson and his wife Sheila were on the way to their holiday home when they died in the head-on crash.
    An inquest heard how their Volvo was struck by 26-year-old Andrew Workman after he lost control of his vehicle.
    He became distracted when the bee flew through his open window and stung him on the crotch, causing him to fail to negotiate an approaching bend.
    Mr Johnson, 66, had no chance of taking avoiding action as the Ford Transit swerved across the road into his path in Shepley, near Huddersfield.
    The retired builder died instantly but his wife of 46 years, Sheila, 65, was able to speak to paramedics before losing consciousness.
    The inquest heard the couple, of Ashton-under-Lyne, Greater Manchester, died from multiple injuries.
    Werner Welgemoed, who was travelling with Mr Workman, said in a statement: "We were travelling home from work when a bumble-bee flew into the bus on the driver's side and settled into his crotch.
    "He and I looked down and as we looked up we crossed onto the other side of the road and cars were coming towards us. I passed out."
    Mr Workman, from Honley, West Yorkshire, spoke in court only to confirm what happened but in a police statement he said he was stung and could not stop in time to avoid the crash last June.
     
  3. Seacowboys

    Seacowboys Senior Member Founding Member

    [FONT=Arial, sans-serif]The body of 70-year-old Joseph Cooper was found by cemetery workers early yesterday. [/FONT][FONT=Arial, sans-serif]Police called a doctor from the medical examiner’s office, who told them the marks on the man resembled a "classic lightening strike case," according to Tucson police Sgt Kerry Fuller. [/FONT]
    [FONT=Arial, sans-serif]It appeared that Cooper was struck sometime Saturday evening.[/FONT]
     
  4. Seacowboys

    Seacowboys Senior Member Founding Member

    SOUTH BEND – A man was killed Friday when a tree he was cutting down fell on him, police said.

    About 5:41 p.m., Portage Township firefighters responded to a home in the 22900 block of West Edison Road, just west of Dickinson Middle School, where they found 79-year-old Lawrence Slater of South Bend pinned beneath the trunk of a large tree behind the home, county police spokesman Sgt. William Redman said.
    Several firefighters lifted the tree off of the man, but he was already dead, Redman said.
    By the way Slater was positioned beneath the tree, it appeared he had been bent over cutting it and it fell directly on his back, crushing him, Redman said.
     
  5. Seacowboys

    Seacowboys Senior Member Founding Member

    WESLEY CHAPEL, Fla. --A 4-year-old boy collapsed and died after he wandered in front of a "pitch-back" net and was accidentally struck in the chest by a baseball thrown by another youth.
    Cayden Huels was a victim of a sudden heart disturbance called "commotio cordis" -- Latin for "heart commotion" -- a cardiologist said.
    Commotio cordis happens from time to time, but seldom to such a young child. The chest wall impact must be near the center of the heart, and there's only a 1 percent or 2 percent chance of it happening at the precise moment when it can be deadly.
    "It has to be a specific location and carefully timed in the cardiac cycle," said Dr. Barry Maron, a cardiologist with the Minneapolis Heart Institute Foundation who has studied the phenomenon for a decade. "You have to be unlucky."
    Cayden died Thursday night. He had pulled away from his 12-year-old brother at a local park and stepped in front of the pitch-back net, which bounces a thrown ball back to the pitcher.
    An autopsy Friday showed Cayden died of ventricular fibrillation caused by a blunt impact to the chest, said Harrison Cowan, a medical examiner's investigator in Tampa. Fibrillation results in little or no blood being pumped.
    Maron said commotio cordis doesn't show up as a cause of death because the heart suffers no structural damage, but it can be diagnosed through anecdotal information. He has confirmed 200 cases but believes others might not have been reported or diagnosed.
    The impact doesn't have to be hard, Maron said. Little League balls generally are thrown 40 or 50 mph, but he said it doesn't have to be that fast. While commotio cordis most often happens during sports, it can be caused by any projectile. Victims have been up to 45 years old. Maron said the fatality rate is 85 percent.
    In September, 11-year-old Andy Buff suffered commotio cordis when he was struck in the chest by a pitched ball in Columbia, S.C. However, he was revived by two medical professionals who had sons playing in the same tournament, and he missed only one day of school.
    Cayden's family was too distraught to speak. "Cayden was their world," said Charlie Van Auken, a colleague of Cayden's father, Danny Huels, at Ricoh Americas Corp.[​IMG]
     
  6. Seacowboys

    Seacowboys Senior Member Founding Member

    [​IMG] Woman killed in fall down stairs
    Evening Mail ; August 3, 2000 ; 41 words ... A WOMAN has died after accidentally falling down stairs at her Midland home. Elizabeth Dolman, aged 43, of Sutton Lane, Lower Brailes, South Warwickshire, was found by her husband on his return from work yesterday. Police are not treating her death assuspicious.
     
  7. Seacowboys

    Seacowboys Senior Member Founding Member

    A pensioner has been trampled to death by a cow while walking her dog through a field.
    Police revealed today that the 66-year-old woman died in hospital after being knocked over and trampled in north Warwickshire.
    The tragedy happened in fields at the back of the Carlyon Road Industrial Estate in Atherstone.
    Police say the fields had public access and were occupied by a herd of cows, some with calves and others pregnant.
    The dead woman, who lived in Atherstone, has not yet been named. She was taken to Nuneaton’s George Eliot Hospital but died shortly afterwards.
    The tragedy happened on Saturday but details were only released today.
    Today, a senior county councillor and farmer expressed his shock.
    Councillor Martin Heatley, a former chairman of the Warwickshire branch of the National Farmers’ Union, said: “I express my deep regret that someone has lost their life while walking their dog in a field.
    “Nevertheless, the fact remains that the general public should be aware that cows with calves, like all females with babies, are very protective, especially when someone is walking a dog. Whether the dog is on or off a lead, it can result in conflict.”
    Ron Weston, a keen rambler who writes the Evening Telegraph’s Country Walks column, said he believed the dog may have triggered the cow’s behaviour.
    He said: “Dogs seem to attract the animal instinct in cows.
    “Farm animals protect their young and if you have a dog the cows will react.
    “If cattle approach people with dogs the best thing they can do is let their dog off the lead and they are then more likely to chase the dog.”
    The Health and Safety Executive says a “hand-ful” of deaths occurred in Britain each year as a result of people being trampled by cows.
    A spokeswoman for the Coventry CHA Rambling Club said they advised members not to wave their arms or sticks about too much while walking past cows.
     
  8. Seacowboys

    Seacowboys Senior Member Founding Member

    ELLENBURG, N.Y. - A deer being kept in a pen attacked and killed his owner Sunday, state police said.The buck that killed Ronald Donah, 43, was among about a half dozen deer penned up on his property in Ellenburg, about 180 miles north of Albany, said state Trooper Joseph House.
    Details of Donah’s injuries and what may have prompted the attack were not available Sunday.
     
  9. Seacowboys

    Seacowboys Senior Member Founding Member

    A man died when his walking stick was forced down his throat by killers at his Great Yarmouth home, a jury heard.
    Alan Bowles's stick was inserted into his body to a depth of 9ins (22cms), jurors at Norwich Crown Court heard.
    David Comer, 39, of Broad Row, Great Yarmouth, Paul Slack, 46, and Kathleen Johnson, 57, both of no fixed address, all deny murdering Mr Bowles.
    Richard Potts, prosecuting, said Mr Bowles died in his living room in Yarmouth Way in May 2007. <!-- E SF -->
    The court heard Mr Bowles was called "the old man" and was bullied by Mr Comer, before he died.
    Mr Potts said: "His death was not peaceful and neither was it dignified.
    "He was subjected to violence which must have been almost unimaginable.
    "The only people who saw the incident were the defendants, and there has to be an issue as to when it happened between 24 May and 29 May last year."
    The case continues.<!-- E BO -->
     
  10. Seacowboys

    Seacowboys Senior Member Founding Member

    The recent death of a 13-year-old girl in Ohio after she was hit in the forehead with a puck has raised concerns about safety at rinks. It was the first time a fan had been killed by a puck at an N.H.L. game. In recent years, fans have been killed by pucks at smaller arenas. But in 1948, in a game few people remember, a 47-year-old woman was killed after being hit by a puck at the old Madison Square Garden.
    The game, on Feb. 1, 1948, was between two non-N.H.L. teams, the New York Rovers and the Ottawa Senators.
    The woman, Mary A. Going, was among 12,104 spectators at the Garden. Going, who asked before the game to be seated in a safe place, died on March 13, according to court papers that detail a lawsuit her husband brought successfully against the Garden.
    ''It was a vociferous, mean trial, where they tried by every way to beat us down,'' Patrick J. Beary, the lawyer who represented the husband, James P. Going, said in a telephone interview.
    The Garden denied the charges and argued that Going's injuries were caused by her own ''carelessness and negligence,'' according to court papers.
    But a jury in New York State Supreme Court in Queens awarded James Going $6,082.40 in damages and costs after a five-day trial in January 1951 presided over by Justice Nicholas M. Pette.
    According to documents, Mary Going, a Midtown receptionist and switchboard operator, went to a hockey game at the Garden about 3 p.m. on Feb. 1.
    She requested that the Garden ''sell and assign her a seat outside the danger zone, adequately protected by said glass partition or screen, and safe from any misdirected puck.''
    She was given such a seat in Section G, Row A, Number 6, according to the documents.
    It is unclear exactly how high the glass partitions were.
    The court documents do not mention which teams were playing, but an article in The New York Times on Feb. 2 said that the Rovers beat the ''high-flying'' Senators, 4-2, that afternoon in a Quebec Senior Hockey League game. The Rangers played the Chicago Blackhawks later that night.
    In the afternoon game, Going ''was struck in the head by a puck which had been lofted into the air by one of the players in said contest, causing injuries,'' the documents said.
    A doctor who examined Going the next day said she probably had a fracture of the right parietal bone in her skull and had sustained a concussion. She had a cut above her right eye where the puck had struck her.
    On Feb. 23, Going saw the doctor again and complained of ''bad headaches with pains in the neck and shoulder.''
    The doctor determined that Going was in shock.
    Going died less than three weeks later.
    At the trial, the Garden's lawyers enlisted star hockey players to testify, Beary said.
    Beary went on to become an administrative law judge for the city under Mayor Edward I. Koch. He now lives part of the year in Highland Beach, Fla., with his wife, Marie.
    After reading about the death of Brittanie Cecil, who died March 18 in Ohio, he said, ''I thought it was my case all over again, except this was a young vibrant girl and it shouldn't have happened to her.''
     
  11. RightHand

    RightHand Been There, Done That RIP 4/15/21 Moderator Moderator Emeritus Founding Member

    So true SC but since I have been taking my grandson to the very same CT club this boy uses with his dad, it gives me pause. We won't stop but I will make sure he reads the story to reinforce every discussion we have about firearm safety. This episode may not have been the result of unsafe use but I want him to understand, always, that when he is holding a weapon, his full concentration must be on what he is doing. Also, maybe an Uzi is a little too much weapon for an 8 year old. I've never fired an Uzi so I doen't know but it is a question in my mind.
     
  12. Seacowboys

    Seacowboys Senior Member Founding Member

    Yep. People have lost their lives eating jelly-beans, throwing horse-shoes, playing in tree-houses, taking a bath, taking a poop; point is that everyone dies eventually, some sooner than others and I'll probably have a helicopter fall onto a light-pole that electrocutes a squirrel that drops it's nut on my head and causes me to fall onto a lawn sprinkler and get impaled.
     
  13. ghrit

    ghrit Bad company Administrator Founding Member

    I wonder if he attempted to rope it --
     
  14. ghrit

    ghrit Bad company Administrator Founding Member

    The point of the news article is one thing worth noting. While not particularly directed at the misuse of guns, it is pretty clear that the incident will be used as fodder for the anti movements. We need to take stock of the idiocy of letting a small person fire something that they do not have the skill or strength to control. That "qualified" range instructor pretty clearly wasn't able to assess the risk. That part worries me.
     
  15. tommy20/69

    tommy20/69 Monkey++

    they should have known that a fully auto would have muzzle climb. someone will be in trouble for this before it's over.
     
  16. ghrit

    ghrit Bad company Administrator Founding Member

    Yep. Muzzle climb with a stiff arm is one thing, yet another with a bent elbow. [beat] Very much a coaching issue. [gone]
     
  17. OzarkSaints

    OzarkSaints Monkey++

    Obama, and the like, will have a field day with this........worst part about it, other than the obvious, is that 'they' will point the blame on guns, instead of the instructor....if this has been a standing practice, to let children of 8 years age shoot a full auto uzi, then the instructor should not be charged with any crimes....non the less, it is a bad practice, especially considering that it ain't the instructors' kid and therefore he don't know shit about the kid and his/her expierience, maturity, or anything else.........can't even imagine being the father and having that happen at all, much less in while holding onto his son....poor ****ing guy...seriously.
     
  18. tommy20/69

    tommy20/69 Monkey++

    now this is just me but if they are gonna let kids shoot these guns then they should put some eye bolts in the ground that way they could put a lanyard on the front of the gun . if this would have been done this kid would still be alive.i made one for my son a while back thay you put your foot through and attach to the front of the barrel it worked great and the barrel never ever climbed .if i still had it i would post a picture of it but it's been loaned out and never returned. but they can be made out of a simple bungee cord and man they do help them kids with recoil or should i say muzzle climb.
     
  19. RightHand

    RightHand Been There, Done That RIP 4/15/21 Moderator Moderator Emeritus Founding Member

    Great suggestion tommy. I'll remember that one.
     
  20. tommy20/69

    tommy20/69 Monkey++

    the quickest one to make is with a bungee cord just hook one end on the barrel and hook the other end on their shoe lace walmart sales the adjustable cords they work better unless it's just a one person cord but if you need it for multiple people i would get the ajustable one . if you look in the sporting goods places they have them exersize things that you put one foot through and you curl your arms with you can cut the cord off and use the d-ring off it to slide over the foot.
     
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