An 18-month-old girl died of a gunshot wound to the head at 2 Ranwood Lane in Palm Coast shortly before midnight Sunday. The Flagler County Sheriff’s Office and two other agencies are investigating.
Palm Coast Fire Chief Kyle Berryhill said the department responded to “a report of a gunshot wound, a child,” 20 minutes before midnight. The girl was taken by ground to Halifax hospital in Daytona Beach. “We’d have to have been actively performing life saving measures for her to be transported,” the chief said.
Rescuers considered calling in an emergency helicopter, Berryhill said, but, “based on the condition of the patient,” determined that “going by ground immediately was the better option, in accordance with our protocols.”
“At the scene, all of Ladder 25’s crew and all of Rescue 22’s crew, five paramedics, helped with the transport,” after providing life-saving measures. The child was pronounced deceased at Halifax, a Flagler County Sheriff’s spokesperson said.
“It’s possible that it was accidental, that’s what they were reporting originally when they got the call, but not confirmed it was accidental,” the sheriff’s spokesperson said. A Florida Department of Law Enforcement’s Crime Scene Investigation unit, along with investigators from the State Attorney’s Office, are assisting the sheriff’s Major Crimes Unit in the investigation.
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Six people live at that address, a rental, in Palm Coats’s R-Section. All six were home the night of the shooting. There did not appear to have been a social event at the time, the spokesperson said. Early this morning, the Sheriff’s Office posted on its Facebook page: “There is a large law enforcement presence on Ranwood Lane in Palm Coast. There is no danger to the public.”
One weapon has been recovered from the house by investigators.
“Not a good situation. It’s one of the hardest parts of the job,” Berryhill said.
Flagler County Sheriff Rick Staly is holding a 1 p.m. press conference on the case at the Sheriff’s Operations Center in Bunnell.
