Tragedy in Ohio, USA , where a 2-year-old boy accidentally shot his 8-month-pregnant mother in the back with a loaded, unprotected handgun, killing her .
The woman , Laura Ilg, 31, called 911 saying she was shot by her son at her Norwalk home , Superintendent David Smith told local media. "She explained that she was pregnant and that her 2-year-old son had accidentally shot her in the back with a gun," Cleveland told ABC News 5. Despite the rapid intervention of the emergency services, however, the young woman died in hospital and the child she was carrying could not be saved.
The woman, still conscious when the police arrived, explained that her son had managed to enter the parents' bedroom, usually locked, while she was doing the laundry, and had started playing with the gun.
Police also found a 9mm handgun on the bedside table and two other loaded firearms.
According to local media, the husband of the victim, who was absent at the time of the tragedy, told the police that the weapons belonged to him.
BACKGROUND – This tragedy is the latest in a long series in the United States, a country with 400 million firearms for about 330 million inhabitants.
In March, a 3-year-old girl accidentally killed her 4-year-old sister with a shotgun near Houston, Texas, despite the presence of five adults, including her parents, in the home.
According to the Pew Research Center, approximately 40% of American families own firearms and a good proportion of these have children. And less than half of these families store their guns safely, according to a Johns Hopkins University study.
(Unioneonline/vl)
