CLIVE (AP) — Authorities say a 2-year-old who’d shot himself with his father’s gun at a suburban Des Moines hotel is expected to soon leave a hospital.
The shooting occurred Sunday at the Sterling Inn in Clive. Officers say he’d picked up and fired the .45-caliber handgun his father had left in some luggage. Police say the bullet passed through the boy’s chest and neck before lodging in a wall.
Police said in a news release Monday that the little boy is improving and is expected to be released from Blank Children’s Hospital in Des Moines “in the very near future.”
Police identified his parents as 29-year-old Jonathan Hauser and his mother as 28-year-old Kylie Harvey. They live in Council Bluffs.
Police say Hauser has an Iowa handgun permit.