When deputies and EMS personnel arrived on scene, they discovered a fourteen-year-old male with a shotgun wound to his left hand. The victim was stabilized by medical staff and later transported to a Tucson hospital where he underwent surgery for his injury.
The investigation revealed, two juvenile males both age fourteen had found various rounds of ammunition in a shed behind their property. The juveniles decided to place a metal pipe in a vice and then place the ammunition inside of the pipe and strike the primer with a hammer/ax to discharge the rounds.
At least two spent casings for a rifle chambered in 30-30 were located as well as an old piece of wooden furniture placed in the path of the end of the metal pipe about twenty feet away. The wooden chest had at least one hole in it indicating a successful fire. When one of the juveniles placed a 12-gauge-shotgun slug in the pipe and attempted to discharge it in the same manner, the round blew up and shrapnel became lodged in the palm of his left hand.
The unspent rounds of ammunition were seized for destruction as the guardian of the child is a prohibited possessor and is not able to possess ammunition or firearms. The guardian told deputies he had inherited the property from his grandfather and the ammunition had been left in the shed. The guardian also claimed no knowledge to what the juveniles were doing until one of them was injured.
Child protective services was notified.
