DAD RECOUNTS FINDING 4 YEAR OLD DAUGHTER WITH GUNSHOT WOUND AFTER SHE GOT HOLD OF A GUN

MEMPHIS, Tenn. — It's something we hear all too often: a child getting their hands on a gun and accidentally shooting themselves. 

 

Now, one father is talking about what happened to his 4-year-old little girl Tricia Pound who got ahold of a weapon inside their Fox Meadows home.

"I was home that night," said Steven Pound.
He was home with Tricia and his other kids on August 18. He didn't know a family member had left the house and forgot to lock her bedroom door.

"Tricia went into the room. I guess she was exploring like she normally does. She pushed something up to the closet," he said.That's where Tricia found a gun.
"It sounded like a textbook hitting the floor," he said. "I ran down the stairs, because I thought it was furniture falling over frankly."

Pound went numb when he found his little girl had accidentally shot herself in the neck.
"I was tunnel vision when I ran to pick her up. I smelled the sulfur," he told WREG. "I took her outside and waited for the paramedics to come. When I heard them come around the corner, I ran out to the bottom of the driveway and laid her down at the feet of the first responders."
Tricia went to Le Bonheur and spent hours in surgery. She survived.

"The doctors said if it was a millimeter in any direction it could have been fatal," said Pound. "Ultimately it caused swelling that she's still recovering from now. She's still suffering double vision."

She's now recovering at a inpatient rehab center in Atlanta.
"I can't imagine what Steven went through," said Tami Montgomery. "All I heard was Tricia, shot, Le Bonheur. I grabbed my keys and ran out the door."

Montgomery is a family friend. She's now planning an event to raise money for medical bills and raise gun safety awareness.
"Get the information in the hands of the public and make sure this doesn't happen to another family," she said.

She and the family will be handing out gun locks at Dru's Bar in Midtown next Sunday October 15 from 2 p.m. to 6 p.m.

There will be gun experts also there to offer parents advice.
"Teaching them what it is, what it does and why it's dangerous. It could be the difference between the life we had before and the life we have today," said Pound. "To me, that's going to be the biggest thing that comes out of this: the education."
If you would like to help the family, donate here: https://www.gofundme.com/trisha-pound-family-expenses

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