3-year old fatally shoots sister with grandfather’s gun

The pistol lay on the bedroom nightstand loaded and untouched. And then it was in the toddler’s hands, pointed toward his older sister.

A moment later, Kimberly Reylander was on the floor, bleeding from a gunshot wound to her head. The adults rushed into the room.

The nine-year-old girl was flown by medical helicopter to Children’s of Alabama Saturday, where she died of her injuries, according to AL.com.

Irondale, Alabama, Police Chief Ken Atkinson told AL.com and WIAT that the children’s greatgrandfather had left the pistol on his nightstand Saturday morning, not knowing that the kids were coming over. He wasn’t home at the time of the shooting, but the kids’ grandmother and uncle were, though they didn’t know there was a gun in the room where the children were playing.

“It appears to be a tragic accident,” Atkinson said.

Local TV station WBRC reported that it doesn’t seem any charges will be filed, citing Irondale Police.

“Her grandma was laying the towel on her head and laid down there and started praying, she was praying, I was praying, my wife was screaming and praying. Nobody knows how that feels until you experience it,” the girl’s grandfather, Joel Watson, told WIAT.

Shootings by toddlers are tragically common. Washington Post survey last fall found 43 instances in the first 10 months of 2015 in which someone had been shot by a child of three or younger. Fifteen of those shootings were fatal — most often for the toddlers themselves.

So far this year, at least four toddlers have accidentally fired a gun at themselves; one of them died from his injuries.

Kimberly is the f ifth person to be hurt in an accidental shooting by a toddler since Jan. 1.

The little girl’s funeral will be held this week. Her death is still under investigation, Atkinson told AL.com, adding a warning for owners of guns:

“The lesson is you have to make sure those weapons are put up, out of sight and out of reach, really of anyone, but especially children,” he said. “It is tragic because this 3-year-old has no idea what is going on right now. It is just a horrible situation.”