GERMANTOWN-- Germantown Police say a single shot rang out of a .40 caliber pistol at a house on Mary Place around 9:30 Saturday morning.

The victim, a 57 year old man suffered wounds to the forearm and leg and reportedly lost a large amount of blood.

Germantown Police Detective Darryl Swafford says there were seven people in the house at the time, one of whom brought the gun inside.

He offered a simple yet valuable lesson for properly handling a gun.

"One thing to take away from this is to make sure if you're going to unload your weapon, make sure it's completely unloaded and have somebody else check the weapon before you just disable it. Take it apart and just make sure the chamber is clear."

Those lessons are taught at facilities like the SIM Training firearms school in Moraine.
Instructor Jeff Pedro says the scenario that played out in Germantown is one he's used to.

"In the Miami Valley over the last couple years, i'm aware of several incidents whereby individuals who shouldn't have gotten access to guns, in a couple cases kids and even young adults and college students got a hold of loaded guns, didn't know if they were loaded, didn't know how to handle them, didn't know how to check if they were loaded, and it resulted in the injury or death of themselves or others."

Fortunately, however, Pedro says learning how to make those checks doesn't take long or a lot of skill.

"If people follow the universal rules-- if you treat all guns as if they're loaded, keep your finger off the trigger until you're ready to fire, keep the gun pointed in a safe direction at all times and remembering your backstop and what's beyond it, you can almost eliminate the chance of an accident happening."Accidental Shooting in Germantown