In the vast, remote landscape of the NSW outback, a hunting trip took a serious and unexpected turn, leaving a young boy in the hospital and triggering a major police investigation.
What was meant to be an outdoor excursion for a group from Victoria has now become the centre of a complex inquiry, as authorities work to piece together the events that led to a nine-year-old suffering a gunshot wound.
An Urgent Arrival at Hospital
The alarm was first raised on Friday evening around 7:15 pm. A nine-year-old boy was rushed into Bourke Hospital, a small facility serving the remote north-west of New South Wales.
He was suffering from a gunshot wound to his upper right thigh.
While hospital staff worked to treat him, news of the injury reached the Central North Police District, and an investigation was immediately launched.
Officers were informed the incident occurred at a rural property approximately 40km north of the town, where the boy had been on a hunting trip. Thankfully, the child is reported to be in a stable condition. But how the injury occurred remains the critical, unanswered question.
A Scene of Concern for Investigators
When police arrived at the property, the scale of the hunting trip became clear. The injured boy was part of a group of ten people, all visiting from Victoria.
The party included five men, aged between 37 and 63, and four other boys, whose ages ranged from nine to fifteen.
As they began to probe the circumstances, officers made a significant discovery. A total of 17 firearms—including air rifles, high-calibre rifles, and a shotgun—were located and seized from the scene.
The discovery of a large arsenal in connection with an incident involving a child has placed the entire group under intense scrutiny.
The Investigation Underway
The focus of the investigation now lies with the Central North Police District. Detectives are carefully examining the firearms licences held by the adults in the group. Key questions will revolve around firearm safety protocols, the level of supervision, and the exact sequence of events that led to the boy being injured.
The incident serves as a sobering reminder of the immense responsibility that comes with handling firearms, particularly in the presence of children. As the investigation continues, the findings will be crucial in understanding how this trip went so wrong.
For now, a family is focused on their son’s recovery, while police are left to untangle the details of a hunting trip that ended not in sport, but in a hospital room.