On Saturday, May 18, at a family festival organized on the preschool grounds, a six-year-old girl was grazed by a pellet near the shoulder. The wound proved minor, while the understandable fright of the child’s guardians and the organizers was more serious. The incident was reported to the police, and the City Hall was informed on the day of the accident. A reader notified us about the matter.
“On Saturday [...] an accident occurred. At the military-themed stall, a girl was shot in the neck with a pellet. The administration was questioned by the police. Why did it allow such a weapon on the preschool grounds? Why was the area not secured? Who is responsible for this? Why did it fail to take such precautions?”
The shooting range at the festival was prepared by the Association of Former Soldiers of the 62nd Special Company Commando, which possesses all the necessary permits and the expertise to safely prepare such an attraction for children.
“What the children were shooting with is not a weapon but a shooting device,” explains the festival shooting-range organizer, Bogdan Fiałkowski. “A weapon has more than 17 J (editor’s note: the joule is a measure of kinetic energy, in this case that of a projectile leaving a barrel). The device the children used at the festival has only 2.5 J. We do not bring weapons to activities with children. Still, when a pellet hits soft parts of the body, it will cause an injury, like a stone thrown out from under the tire of a moving car,” the organizer adds.
Bogdan Fiałkowski prepared the shooting-range area, but was not present when the accident occurred. He arrived at the scene immediately afterward, accompanied the child and her guardian to the hospital, and gave a statement to the police. He has also arranged to speak with the child’s parents about the incident in the near future.
“A ricochet must have occurred after the shot, meaning this was an extraordinary coincidence, because everything there had been properly secured,” explains the deputy head of the Commando association. “The pellet hit something hard, perhaps a screw in the wooden target, and ricocheted into the shoulder of a child turning around after firing a shot. It is fortunate that it was not the eye or cheek, but the shoulder. We have been organizing festivals for a long time and provide free assistance to schools and preschools. We know what we are doing and secure everything so that nothing bad happens,” the organizer assures us.
Kornel Filipowicz, who was present at the festival that day, also assures us that a more thorough analysis of what happened will be carried out, while noting that it may not be advisable to organize shooting ranges at preschool festivals, although we know that they are popular and children enjoy shooting at targets.
“The festival was held at the preschool on the initiative of the Parents’ Council,” says Kornel Filipowicz. “It was well attended. An unfortunate incident occurred during the event. The preschool director reacted immediately, all the emergency services arrived, the police were notified, an on-site assessment was carried out, and the child was taken to hospital under the care of her guardian. It appears that everything is all right. Today, the director told me that she is in contact with the parents and that, according to the director, they have no complaints and believe that the safety rules were followed,” the deputy mayor adds.
A police spokesperson told us that preliminary findings indicate that the girl was struck by a pellet as a result of a ricochet and that it was an unfortunate accident.