Deputy Saves Boy After Shooting Mishap

Authorities credited “quick action” by a sheriff’s deputy with saving the life of a 13-year-old Lancaster boy who had accidentally shot himself with his father’s .45-caliber automatic pistol.

A spokesman for the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department said the deputy, Mark Richardson, disregarded the possibility of danger when he quickly attended to the bleeding boy he encountered in the doorway of a home. Although there was a chance that there was a gunman inside the house, Richardson ran up and pulled the boy, Todd Pearson, from the doorway onto the lawn and stopped the bleeding until paramedics arrived by squeezing the teen-ager’s wounded leg.

The incident began about 11:30 a.m. with a call to police that shots had been fired at 43127 Montemart Court in Lancaster and that someone inside was wounded. No more information was available so authorities assumed there was a gunman on the loose.

“The line was dead and we were unable to communicate with anyone in the house,” Richardson said. “Myself and two other deputies arrived at the location. I shouted, ‘Sheriff’s Department, come out with your hands up.’

“At that time, the door was opened and a teen-ager came out. I saw he was bleeding profusely from his left leg from a gunshot wound. I didn’t know if there were a shooter inside the house. . . . It is a bad feeling if you don’t know if there is anybody in the house.”

As it turned out, no one else was inside.

Before losing consciousness, the boy said he had been examining his father’s .45-caliber automatic when the hammer slipped, causing the weapon to fire, deputies said.

The youth, who suffered a severed artery and shattered left femur, was taken to the Antelope Valley Medical Center “very near death” and was listed Saturday evening in very serious condition, said Deputy Van Mosley, a Sheriff’s Department spokesman.

“The boy is expected to live, thanks to the deputy’s quick action,” Mosley said, praising Richardson for “disregarding possible danger to himself” in saving the boy’s life.