FORT WORTH, Texas, June 20 (UPI) -- Two Fort Worth, Texas, children were wounded by a single bullet fired accidentally by a 13-year-old boy checking to see if a rifle was loaded, authorities said.
Police said the 13-year-old found the rifle in a storage shed of the family home and was trying the see if it was loaded when he inadvertently pulled the trigger, the Fort Worth Star-Telegram reported Monday.
The bullet struck two of his two preschool-age siblings, a boy and a girl, the newspaper reported.
Police said the bullet traveled through the boy's chest, missing any major organs, then struck the girl in the wrist and ricocheted into the side of her head.
"It doesn't penetrate the skull because it's slowed down so much by that point in time and it just lodged under the skin," Mike Simonds, chief Tarrant County sheriff's deputy, said.
The children were taken to Children's Medical Center of Dallas.
"They're going to be fine," Simonds said.
Police were treating the incident as an accident, he said.
"We'll do some more interviews on it but everything indicates this is nothing but (an accident)," Simonds said. "The detective did talk to the 13-year-old and didn't seem to think there was anything malicious about discharging the weapon."
