Boy Playing With Toy Gun
A boy plays with his toy gun as he sits with a member of the Free Syrian Army in Deir al-Zor July 22, 2013. Picture taken July 22, 2013. Reuters

Young children accessing the guns of adults and accidentally shooting someone in the family are happening one incident after another in the U.S.

The latest occurred on Saturday on Saturday afternoon at a motel room in Albuquerque, New Mexico, when a three-year-old boy took a handgun from his mother’s purse and accidentally squeezed the trigger. The bullet hit his father, Justin Reynold, on the lower backside, reports CNN.

But it didn’t end there because the bullet exited from the man’s hip and hit the boy’s pregnant mother, Monique Villescas, on the right shoulder. She is on her eighth month of pregnancy, according to Police Officer Simon Drobik of the Albuquerque Police Department.

They were about to order a pizza when the couple heard the gunfire.

“The next minute I realised my girlfriend was bleeding. Then I saw down and realised I was shot too,” Reynolds told KOB, the news station of NBC. He immediately called emergency services and tried to stop Villescas’s bleeding with towels.

Both parents were hospitalised due to their bullet wounds. Reynolds was released after treatment, while Villescas is still confined although in a stable conditions. The unborn baby’s condition is not known.

The Children’s Youth and Families Department is temporarily taking care of the boy and his 2-year-old sister. The two tykes were not injured by the accidental shooting, but Reynolds said his son was shocked and crying after what happened and was traumatised by the incident.

The Albuquerque District Attorney’s Office is studying if it would file criminal negligence charges against the parents, Drobik said.

According to BBC, the boy was actually reaching for an iPod but got the gun instead.

A similar incident happened in Idaho in December. But the victim was not as lucky as Villescas because the bullet from the gun that her two-year-old son got hold of when he reached into her bag while they were in a Walmart store killed her.

To contact the writer, email: v.hernandez@ibtimes.com.au