Estimated read time: 2-3 minutes
This archived news story is available only for your personal, non-commercial use. Information in the story may be outdated or superseded by additional information. Reading or replaying the story in its archived form does not constitute a republication of the story.
SALT LAKE CITY -- A teenage boy accidentally shot and killed himself while playing with a gun Thursday afternoon. It happened in the Glendale area of Salt Lake, near 1200 South and 1200 West.
It started as a card game with friends around 2 p.m.
"He was just all playing around and stuff, nothing. It wasn't supposed to go this far," said Sione Tuione.
The group of seven was inside a Glendale home laughing and joking until 16-year-old Maile Fine pulled out a gun.
"He was just messing around, talking about Russian Roulette or something," Eric Salt said.
"We told him to stop playing around or something bad is going to happen," Tuione said.
"I saw him take out the bullets, so that's why I thought it was already safe," Salt added.
But police say Fine didn't realize there was one bullet left inside the gun.
"Last word I heard was that he said, ‘I'm not going to die,'" Salt said.
Friends say Fine raised his left arm, held the revolver to his head and pulled the trigger.
"Just the way he looked at me when the gun shot went off," Salt Said.
"At first, I was just in shock," Tuione said. "I looked at him and just seen his head tilt and seen all the blood coming out, and that's when it just hit me."
Police say this was just a tragic accident, that Fine never meant to hurt himself or anyone else.
The East High School freshman was breathing when officers arrived. They hoped he would pull through, but Fine died at Intermountain Medical Center.
"[We] don't know how he got the gun, came upon the gun, where the gun was, why it wasn't locked, put away, separated from the ammunition; all the kinds of gun safety things that we should all try to practice," said Salt Lake City police Lt. Scott White.
Police say they're still investigating how and where Fine got the gun, but friends say he brought it to the house.
E-mail: jstagg@ksl.com
---
