http://www.news24.com/SouthAfr...aning-rifle-20130705


Girl killed while cleaning rifle
2013-07-05 11:05




Mahikeng – A 15-year-old girl has died after shooting herself by accident while cleaning her 300 Winchester Magnum hunting rifle.

Beeld reported on Friday that Stephanie van den Berg asked her father if she was dying after the incident at their home in Delareyville, North West, on Wednesday.

Her father, Jaco, said when he saw that the wound in his daughter’s stomach was so serious that she would not survive, he answered her honestly: “We all have to die”.

He kept talking to her, telling her he loved her, and she was able to tell her father that she loved him.

Her brother, Philip, 16, held a pressure bandage on the wound and told his sister to “vasbyt”, but by the time an ambulance arrived, it was too late.

Van den Berg told Beeld he didn’t understand how the accident happened, because Stephanie was a good hunter who had shot and handled weapons since her primary school days.

It happened as Stephanie was cleaning the guns after a hunting trip with her father, who left the children at home while he went to their farm.

Philip heard a shot and rushed to the kitchen, to find his sister gravely wounded. Two local doctors who were called could not insert a drip, because Stephanie’s veins had collapsed from blood loss.

i taught firearms safety classed for something like 29 years. during that time i recruited about a dozen guys to help. every one of them jumped on the chance to teach, and every one of them had had a firearms accident sometime during their life. they were eager to help some one else not to have one due to their experience.

What a terrible thing to happen!

Our thoughts to her family.

Thoughts ans prayers to the family.

Terrible story. My thoughts and prayers are with her loved ones.

So sad,prayers sent.

Very tragic and very sad!

One can never be too careful. A terrible tragedy.

So sad! Prayers for the family.

So young, so tragic!!!

Prayers out to the family.

Tragic at a level words cannot describe. Thoughts and prayers to the family.

Hi guys

Its a fiend of mine lost his dad two months ago his farmhouse burned down few weeks ago so im feeling bad and my thoughts and prayer to him and the rest of his family.

Luan