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My 5-year-old was shot in the face by his 12-year-old cousin

A father tells of his horrific experience.
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Robert Calvisi, a Queensland father, has shared the horrific details of the day his son was shot in the face by his cousin with The Courier Mail, and the details are truly harrowing.

Calvisi details the afternoon he spent rushing his five-year-old son, Cameron, to hospital after he was shot in the face by the boy’s 12-year-old cousin. 

Robert tells The Courier Mail that he drove with ‘lead foot’ through an intense storm to reach the nearest hospital as his son’s eyes and mouth poured with blood. 

father and son
(Credit: Facebook)

Cameron was hit in the face by a bullet fired from a rifle at a Cottonvale property near the NSW-Queensland border. 

He was accidentally shot by his 12-year-old cousin while the pair, and another child, were playing with the gun at the rural property. Police are describing the incident as a ‘tragic accident.’ 

According to Robert, his son came running: ‘Daddy, I’ve been shot’.

‘I’ve never driven so fast in my life, 156km/h I think I was doing all the way, in the rain,’ he told the publication. ‘He was drowsy. His eyes were starting to roll [as we drove to the hospital].’

‘I just kept making him say ‘dad’ all the way into town. I was making him talk to me and he was doing it.’

Tony Calvisi, Cameron’s grandfather, told Ten News: ‘Anything can go wrong when the bullet is that close.’

ten eye witness shot
Ten News

Tony was present when the incident occurred, and he recalls the chaotic scene.

‘Nobody would want to go through it – to have a little boy, just hanging on.’ 

Robert is hoping his son will be released from hospital later this week, with the toddler needing a big metal brace known as a ‘halo’, but otherwise making a full recovery.

This article originally appeared on New Idea.

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