8-year-old boy dies after accidental shooting in Utah parking lot

LEHI, Utah (KSL.com) — An 8-year-old boy who was taken to a hospital in extremely critical condition Monday evening after apparently accidentally shooting himself in the head has died.

Lehi police said the child died from his injury at a hospital Tuesday morning. His name has not yet been released.

Police responded to the report of a shooting inside a vehicle parked outside of the Maverik convenience store, 3569 N. Thanksgiving Way, shortly before 7:40 p.m., according to Lehi police spokeswoman Jeanteil Livingston.

She said a child had accidentally shot himself in the head. An on-duty officer arrived and attempted life-saving measures with help from bystanders before the child was taken to a nearby hospital and then flown to another hospital along the Wasatch Front.

The incident remains under investigation.

Doug Shields, who was at the store at the time of the shooting, said he saw the boy’s mother frantically yelling for help and a young boy covered in blood. While others rushed to help the child, he and another man helped the mother, who briefly passed out before she described what happened.

“She goes, ‘He shot himself. He shot himself. He shot himself. … He found the gun under my seat and pulled the trigger.’ It was apparently an accident. A total accident,” Shields said.

Lehi Police Sgt. Jeff Smith said the incident serves as a sad reminder about the importance of gun safety and making sure children don’t have easy access to a weapon.

It comes a little over a week after a 5-year-old Santaquin boy died from what was determined to be an accidental self-inflicted gunshot wound after he found a 9mm handgun in a back bedroom and discharged it.

A Magna woman was also charged last week with aggravated child abuse after prosecutors say she left her gun on a shelf and her 3-year-old son picked up the gun and shot himself in the foot on Aug. 2.

“It’s super tragic,” Smith said. “We hate responding to these types of things.”