A six-year-old girl has been tragically shot dead by another child in South Carolina.
Police were called to a Eutawville home at around 3:40pm on Wednesday (7 August) afternoon.
Officers from the Orangeburg County Sheriff's Department were informed of reports of a shooting.
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When police arrived at the scene, they quickly discovered the girl had been shot by another child in her home.
Officials state the girl was immediately rushed to hospital, where she later died after suffering a single gunshot wound to the upper body.
Sheriff Leroy Ravenell said: "My heart is extremely heavy at having to let the public know what happened.
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"This type of incident, this type of investigation is one of the hardest an investigator will ever do.
"We are broken-hearted over this tragic loss of a little princes. We lost someone precious this week."
An incident report, which has just been released, revealed officers were called to a house on Fountain Lake Drive.
This is where the six-year-old's aunt lives, who was able to shed some light on the situation.
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Living next door, the aunt said the girl's dad approached deputies holding his daughter's head.
The aunt thought the six-year-old had been shot in the head on initial assumption.
The father was not spoken to by police at the time as he was helping transport his wounded daughter to hospital.
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Barry Hutson, Orangeburg County Chief Deputy Chandra Gibbs said: "You got a child that doesn't have a life because of a serious mistake and it's an ongoing problem in the whole world.
"Our job there was to, as much as we could, provide immediate assistance and working with our EMS to secure the scene so that they could provide immediate medical care and get her transported to our local hospital."
Meanwhile, Deputy Gibbs added: "We're focusing on making sure that we're providing that care for [the family] while maintaining education to other families across our country to make sure that they are having those conversations in their homes [about gun safety] and we are also engaged in those conversations as well as far as education and awareness in keeping guns secure."
The incident has sent shockwaves through the local community, with resident Jessie Mott telling WIS10: "It's really shocking. I used to be a teacher so looking at it, the kids weren't in school, so it's kind of like, I don't know, but it's hard. I have a niece and nephew that are 7 years old..."
Callum Jones