Zac was playing with the BB gun his uncle had given him as a present when it accidentally discharged. His younger cousin, Billy, who was walking into the room, suddenly felt the sting of a pellet above his right ear.

For such a tiny piece of lead, it sure did hurt, but the wound didn’t look serious at all. In fact, the surface wound barely seemed worthy of a Band-Aid. But brain scans revealed the unthinkable.

When his parents took him to Memorial Hermann Children’s Hospital, they learned that the BB had traveled almost all the way through Billy’s brain. Bone and hair had become embedded in the brain near the site of the entrance wound. The pellet itself was lodged in the left side of his brain.

“It never occurred to me that the BB would be in his brain,” the mother said. “We just thought the BB was right under the skin and needed to be dug out.”

Doctors quickly determined that Billy would need two major surgeries – a right temporal craniotomy to remove bone and debris and another surgery on the left side of his brain to remove the pellet.

A few seconds of playtime with a BB (ball-bearing) gun turned into seven days in the hospital. He appears to have made a full recovery, but the injury puts him at risk for seizures, delayed infection and diminished intellectual performance.

“People don’t realize that pellet guns and BB guns are lethal weapons. They aren’t toys,” says Dr. James Baumgartner, the neurosurgeon at The University of Texas Medical School at Houston who operated on Billy. “They are weapons, and they should be treated as such.”

A deadly game for boys

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, approximately 30,000 people with BB and pellet gun-related injuries are treated each year in hospital emergency departments in the United States. More than 80 percent of those hurt are children and teenagers. Boys ages 10-14 are at the highest risk for getting injured with a BB gun.

Between 1990 and 2000, the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission reported 39 deaths related to non-powder guns, which include air rifles and BB, pellet and paintball guns. All but six of the victims were children younger than the age of 15.

Baumgartner, assistant professor in the Department of Surgery, said he treats one or two children with gun-related injuries every year. Some children make a full recovery from their BB injuries. Others suffer severe disabilities.

“I operated on a kid who was shot pointblank in the face with a BB gun on Christmas day,” Baumgartner says. “He was a straight-A honors student, and now he is barely functioning. This is what a BB gun can do. If it doesn’t take your life, it can change your life forever.”

Billy’s parents said they never would have had a BB gun in the house if they’d known how seriously it could hurt their son. “We had no idea how powerful and dangerous it could be,” the mother says. “BB guns are marketed as children’s toys, but they need to be treated as weapons. Don’t let your child use it without supervision, and when it’s not in use, keep the BBs separate from the gun and lock it up.”

If a child is going to shoot a BB gun or other type of non-powder weapon, Baumgartner advises a responsible adult teach the child how to handle it properly. “Make sure the kids are using the BB gun in a supervised situation in a safe place."

Oftentimes, when a child is injured with a BB gun, there is a second victim, Baumgartner says. “The kid who does the shooting suffers, too. They sometimes feel unbearable guilt, and the child they shot feels anger. No one walks away from this. Lives get turned upside down.”

Last Updated: 7-05-2005

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