WILLOWBROOK : Woman Loses Arm After 3-Year-Old Son Shoots Her
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A Willowbrook mother’s left arm had to be amputated above the elbow after her 3-year-old son accidentally shot her with an assault rifle, a hospital spokeswoman said Friday.
Elvira Arzate, 30, was alert and in stable condition Friday at Martin Luther King Jr./Drew Medical Center, according to Dr. Tessie Cleveland.
Arzate was shot in the arm Thursday by her son, Eliazar, when the boy grabbed an assault rifle he had found in the back of his father’s car, said Angie McLaughlin, a Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department spokeswoman.
Eliazar Reyes, 29, was booked on suspicion of storing a weapon in an area accessible to children and held in lieu of $15,000 bail.
The toddler “has a toy assault rifle he plays with that is very similar to his father’s real one, so he knew how to point the weapon and pull the trigger,” McLaughlin said.
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