Boy, 5, fighting for life after being shot by cousin, 12

THE distraught family of a five-year-old boy who was left fighting for life after his cousin accidentally shot him in the face were last night awaiting the results of emergency surgery.

The boy was playing in a shed at a family home in southern Queensland, near the NSW border, on Tuesday afternoon when his 12year-old cousin picked up a rifle.

While playing with the weapon, he accidentally fired a shot at the younger boy’s face.

The victim’s distraught grandfather Tony Calvisi said the children had been forbidden from touching guns but curiosity must have got the better of them.

“They were playing with something they were always told never to touch, and I don’t know why,” Mr Calvisi said. “(The gun) was in a place where they shouldn’t have got to it. But children, they find things.”

The Calvisi family has lived in the Stanthorpe area for five generations.