The parents of a 2-year-old girl injured by a falling bullet on July 4 in Independence, Oregon, said their daughter is recovering well physically but still has nightmares about the shooting.
Zach, who asked that he and his wife only be identified by their first names out of fear for their safety for speaking out about gun violence, said his daughter continues to exhibit various signs of anxiety three weeks after she was struck in the leg by the bullet as she and her parents were leaving a Fourth of July celebration.
Zach said he and his wife, Samantha, are now offering a $2,500 reward for information leading to a conviction of the individual who fired that bullet into the air.
“It still hasn’t really sunken in,” Zach said. “There was definitely a lot of, just, shock. My wife and I were just, like, ‘I can’t believe we’re sitting in a hospital with our 2-year-old who has a gunshot wound.’ We’ve done everything we can to protect her from danger and this thing just comes out of nowhere after we have this fun celebration.”
The couple started their Fourth of July by taking their daughter to one of her favorite playgrounds at a park in Monmouth before heading a few miles east to Independence for live music and a fireworks display at the central Oregon town’s annual Independence Days celebration at Riverview Park.
“My daughter loves the fireworks, like most kids,” Zach said.
After watching the fireworks display on the banks of the Willamette River, Zach said he loaded their cooler and blankets into a small plastic wagon, placed his daughter inside it as well, and began walking back to where they had parked, pulling the wagon, while Samantha followed behind.
Zach said he heard fireworks going off all around them as they made their way through the crowd.
Then he heard a loud “pop” that he thought came from a firework that got too close to the wagon as they walked down Monmouth Street around 10:30 p.m.
His daughter started screaming.
“My wife picked her up, and as she picked her up, she felt that her leg was wet,” Zach said. “She looked at it and it was bloody.”
A woman saw what was happening and rushed over to help. Identifying herself as a nurse, she told the couple their daughter had a large puncture wound and would need to go to an emergency room immediately. She advised against calling an ambulance since it would have difficulty accessing the crowded area, which could result in a long wait. The woman handed the couple some sterile gauze and told them to keep pressure applied to the wound, Zach said.
Zach and Samantha rushed their daughter to a hospital in Corvallis, a roughly 30-minute drive from Independence when traffic is low. He said the main thoroughfares were all gridlocked as people left the festival, so he sped down backroads.
He said everything happened so quickly that he and Samantha spent much of the drive wondering how their daughter was injured, and how it could have been avoided.
“My first thought was that someone had thrown a firecracker or something and it landed in our wagon and popped next to her leg,” Zach said. “I was reeling, like, ‘What just happened? What’s going on?’”
At the hospital, staff rushed their daughter into treatment and told the parents the 2-year-old had suffered a gunshot wound. Zach said the bullet went straight through her leg and was found stuck in her pajama pants.
The toddler has received checkups in the days since and is healing well, Zach said.
In an open letter to the perpetrator, Samantha called on the individual who pulled the trigger to turn themselves in. She said she is haunted by “what-ifs” from that day, as well as by images of her daughter’s pajamas pooling with blood.
She wrote that the person responsible has a chance to do the right thing and “apologize to our daughter for the way this thoughtless act assaulted her body, crushed her spirit and traumatized our family.”
“You don’t know my daughter,” the letter reads. “She is a light. She says, ‘drive safe’ and ‘have a nice day’ to strangers.”
Zach said holding someone accountable for injuring their daughter is just one of the family’s goals in speaking out about the incident. He said he hopes it will prevent other similar shootings from occurring, citing an incident in Los Angeles where a 6-year-old boy was taken to a hospital in critical condition after he was struck by a falling bullet that occurred the same day Zach’s daughter was injured.
“If you have a firearm, you need to use it wisely and not put other people in danger,” Zach said. “Even if you’re trying to have a good time and celebrating, you’re responsible for everything you do with that.”
He said that, along with nightmares, his daughter is now “jumpy” when she hears loud noises.
“I hope that she doesn’t remember this when she’s older, but I don’t know, I think she will,” Zach said. “She’s only two but she’s really sharp – she talks about things we did six months ago.”
The family plans on attending counseling to help their daughter process everything, Zach added.
The Independence Police Department is investigating the incident and has asked anyone with information about a person firing a gun into the air around that time in the town to contact Sgt. Lyle Gilbert at gilbert.lyle@ci.independence.or.us or at 503-837-1107.
