Twenty U.S. Kids Hospitalized Each Day for Gun Injuries
Twenty U.S. Kids Hospitalized Each Day for Gun Injuries: Study
Nearly a third of these shootings are accidental, study finds
MONDAY, Jan. 27, 2014 (HealthDay News) -- Gunshot wounds send about 20 children to the hospital every single day in the United States, a new study says.
A review of hospital records found that firearms caused 7,391 hospitalizations among children younger than 20 during 2009, the most recent year for which records are available, said Dr. John Leventhal, lead study author.
Of those shooting victims, 453 died while in the hospital.
More than half of the gun injuries involved an attack on the child, but nearly one-third were unintentional, the investigators found. (Others were of undetermined causes or from suicide attempts.) Three of four hospitalizations of children younger than 10 resulted from accidental injuries.
http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/news/fullstory_144250.html