US: Man shot by dog while lying in bed

A man in Tennessee, United States, was accidentally shot by his dog after the pet got its paw stuck in the trigger of a gun, in what police have described as an unusual but accidental incident.

Jerald Kirkwood, a resident of Memphis, told police that he and a woman were lying in bed with a firearm when his dog jumped up and caused the weapon to discharge. 

According to local news station WREG, the bullet grazed Kirkwood on the upper part of his left thigh.

WREG reported that the one-year-old pit bull, named Oreo, had unintentionally squeezed the trigger after getting his paw stuck in the weapon’s trigger guard. The incident left Kirkwood with a non-critical injury.

The woman present during the incident reportedly left the scene with the firearm while Kirkwood was taken to hospital. Speaking to Memphis’s Fox 13 news station, the woman described Oreo as a lively dog. 

“Oreo is a playful dog, and he likes to jump around and stuff like that, and it just went off,” she said.

When asked whether she was awoken by Oreo jumping on the bed or the sound of the gunshot, she said: “The gunshot. Yeah, a combination of the two.” 

Both the woman and Kirkwood, whose names were partially withheld by some media outlets, have since said they plan to take greater safety precautions with firearms in their home. “Keep the safety on or use a trigger lock,” the woman advised.

Police classified the shooting as an accidental injury and confirmed that no action would be taken against Oreo or his owner.

According to the non-profit Brady: United Against Gun Violence, unintentional firearm injuries have been the most common type of gun injury requiring hospitalisation in the United States since 2019. The country’s gun laws remain among the most lenient in the developed world.

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A 2018 global study on firearm ownership found that civilian-owned guns in the US outnumber the population, which currently exceeds 340 million.

According to The Guardian UK, Kirkwood’s case is not without precedent. In 2018, Richard Remme of Fort Dodge, Iowa, was shot in the leg after his pit bull-labrador mix, Balew, accidentally discharged a gun tucked in his waistband during a playful moment.

A year later, former Louisiana State University football player Matt Branch lost his leg after his black labrador retriever stepped on a hunting shotgun during a trip in Mississippi. The shotgun fired, striking Branch in the leg. He later spent 12 days unconscious and underwent amputation, but eventually recovered and returned to work.

“I was happy to be alive rather than mad I lost my leg,” Branch told Mississippi’s Clarion Ledger.

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