January 22, 2010

Woman injured in accidental shooting

       A woman was shot in the head when a Center Grove area man accidentally fired a gun in his home.  Bryan L. Broaddus, 44, was showing his handgun to his brother when he pulled the trigger of the weapon, not remembering the gun was loaded.  The bullet went through the kitchen wall into the bathroom of the home in the 4900 block of Walker Street, where the woman was straightening her hair, according to a police report.

         Cheryl Patton, 19, had a large open wound to her forehead when deputies arrived, the report said.  She was conscious and alert when she was taken to Methodist Hospital in Indianapolis, Johnson County Sheriff's Office Chief Deputy Doug Cox said.  Patton was listed in good condition Thursday afternoon, according to a hospital spokesman.  Broaddus was showing the gun to his brother and also planned to clean it, the report said.  After it went off, Broaddus went and checked on Patton, saw she was hit in the forehead and gave her some tissue to clean up. He took the magazine out of the gun and called 911, the report said.  Patton told police she didn't hear the gun fire and didn't know exactly what happened.  No one else in the home, including a teenage girl, Patton's infant child and a 71-year-old woman, was injured.  Other family members told deputies a similar story to what Broaddus said, the report said.  Sheriff's deputies took the gun for safekeeping, and Broaddus can reclaim the gun Monday, the report said.

         The shooting was the fifth in the county in recent months.  Last week, Bargersville resident Carl L. Nash, 56, died after shooting himself in the right leg, according to a Bargersville Police Department report.  In late November, Karen Jenkins, 61, was killed when her husband's gun discharged and the bullet struck her in the neck. Her husband, Franklin resident William Jenkins, was not charged with a crime after investigators ruled the shooting accidental.  Franklin resident Neil D. Gates, 15, was shot in the back of the head in the parking lot of Franklin's CVS Pharmacy after a botched drug deal in late November. Christopher Lynn, 16, has been charged in adult court with attempted murder, a Class A felony. Gates had surgery to remove bullet fragments from his skull and was discharged from the hospital less than a week after the shooting.  And a 14-year-old Franklin girl was shot in the forehead this month with a gun that was being held by her 13-year-old cousin. Charges have not been filed in the case, and police believe the shooting was accidental. The girl is out of the hospital and is expected to recover without permanent brain damage.  Reprinted with permission from the Daily Journal

    

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