United States: "I shot my little sister by accident"

"I shot him, it was not intentional," said the childish and anxious voice of the 911 center recording that receives emergency calls to the United States.

"My sister is drowning," continued the boy's voice.

Operator 911: "Are you drowning?"

"She is dead".

"She is dead?"

"Yes, please, look for my mom and dad Oh, my God!"

It was the afternoon of June 5, 1989 in a suburb of Fort Lauderdale,

Florida,

When events occur, it will change the life of Sean Smith, his younger sister Erin, and his family.

Sean and her sister, then aged 10 and 8, had arrived at the school house a few minutes before their mother.

Sean went in search of his video games and for some reason decided to rummage through the drawers of his parents' bedroom. He found what he thought was a toy gun and decided to play with it.

"Even though it happened 30 years ago, I remember it as if it was yesterday," Sean told the BBC.

Loaded pistol

The night before, there had been a robbery in the neighborhood. "The police were patrolling the area, the dogs were barking," recalls Lee Smith, Sean's mother.

Sean's father took the gun out of a drawer and loaded it. "It was my father-in-law's or my mother-in-law's, some had it and gave it to my husband to get rid of it," says Lee.

About three o'clock in the morning, convinced that everything was calm, the father went back to bed and put the loaded pistol back in the drawer.

As was found by Sean the next day.

The boy took the gun in his left hand – he's left-handed – and pointed the window. According to Sean, Erin did not want to have any problems, she was scared and ran away.

Unfortunately, the little girl is signed in front of the gun just when she accidentally pulled her out. The bullet went through his heart.

"The last picture I have is that of my dying sister on my lap," says Sean. "It's an image that I will certainly never wipe out of my head."

Tragedy and repercussions

When Lee arrived home, he saw that the police were everywhere.

"It happened so fast, accidents happen quickly," he observes.

The family had to not only recover from the tragedy, but also the reactions of others.

"At first, people supported us, we were the center of attention, no doubt, it was not so much that they cared about us, they wanted to take sides," Lee said. .

"Some people asked if he did it on purpose," he said. "This was the hardest part, people expressing their opinions on things that they did not know."

Theft and drugs

"I remember wanting to go back to school to feel normal again," she says. But it turned out that the others were more interested in knowing what he had done.

Entered adolescence, things got worse. Sean admits that many years have pbaded without him having spoken to his father, either because everyone blamed himself for being responsible for what had happened, or blaming each other.

"I carried all that guilt, I became self-destructive, flying every chance I could," he admits.

Then the drug arrived and Sean is committed to the path of abuse.

But he had his own son, which gave him a new perspective of his life. "I had to be responsible, not just for myself … but because I was responsible for someone else," he says.

Lee notes that Sean was very concerned about protecting his sister. "If you see pictures of Sean and Erin together, they always kiss each other."

But Sean had a harder path to go.

Finally, he entered a rehabilitation program and started a recovery process.

He says that he prays in the morning looking for absolution and that he has found serenity by going to the beach early in the morning, when there are few people.

"I've had the pleasure of seeing so much sunrise and seeing the beautiful sky and that has definitely connected with her (my sister)," she reveals.

In the United States, some 4.6 million children live in houses with weapons.

Three out of four children know where these weapons are stored.

The same week that Sean killed his sister in Florida, two children died and two others were injured in similar accidents.

"Children will always be curious about firearms, so their presence at home just stimulates that curiosity," said Lee Smith.

"It happened in a millisecond and it changed your life forever," he warns.