Cameron Calvisi, 5, was accidentally shot with a .22 rifle by his 12-year-old cousin as the pair were playing with the gun near Stanthorpe just north of the Queensland-New South Wales border in January
The father and grandfather of a five-year-old boy shot in the face on the family’s rural property south-west of Brisbane have been charged.
Cameron Calvisi was accidentally shot with a .22 rifle by his 12-year-old cousin as the pair were playing with the gun near Stanthorpe just north of the Queensland-New South Wales border in January.
The bullet lodged in Cameron’s jaw and he was airlifted to Lady Cilento Children’s Hospital in Brisbane in a critical condition.
He was placed in an induced coma and underwent emergency surgery to remove the bullet from his face.
The boy’s father Robert Calvisi, 29, was charged with one count of unlawful possession of a weapon. Tony Calvisi, his 63-year-old grandfather was charged with one count of failing to secure a weapon.
Tony Calvisi, Cameron’s 63-year-old grandfather, was charged with one count of failing to secure a weapon. He was at the property at the time of the gun shot and said he was devastated something like this could have happened
The bullet lodged in Cameron’s jaw and he was airlifted to Lady Cilento Children’s Hospital in Brisbane in a critical condition. He was placed in an induced coma and underwent emergency surgery to remove the bullet from his face
Tony Calvisi was present on the property at the time, and was the only person Robert told before he began the mad dash to the hospital.
‘I was devastated, I was shocked to even hear he’d been shot … Nobody would want to go through it – to have a little boy, just hanging on.
‘Anything can go wrong when the bullet is that close,’ the grandfather told Ten News at the time.
Cameron needed to wear a metal neck brace after undergoing three rounds of surgery to dislodge a bullet that lay in his C2 vertebra, only 1mm from his spinal cord.
Cameron needed to wear a metal neck brace after undergoing three rounds of surgery to dislodge a bullet that lay in his C2 vertebra, only 1mm from his spinal cord
Cameron was hit by a bullet fired from a .22 rifle at a Cottonvale property (pictured), near the Queensland-NSW border, in January
Robert Calvisi described the afternoon his son was shot when he drove with a ‘lead foot’ through a fierce storm to reach the nearest hospital as his son’s eyes rolled back and blood poured out of his mouth, he told The Courier Mail.
Robert said he stuffed the child in his car, placed a shirt under him to absorb the blood that was running from his mouth and kept his son talking as he sped towards the closest hospital.
‘I’ve never driven so fast in my life, 156km/h I think I was doing all the way, in the rain,’ he said.
‘He was drowsy. His eyes were starting to roll [as we drove to the hospital].
‘I just kept making him say ‘dad’ all the way into town. I was making him talk to me and he was doing it.’
The men are expected to appear in the Warwick Magistrates Court on March 28.
The Queensland father said he was driving with a ‘lead foot’ through an afternoon storm in the hope of saving his son’s life
Cameron (pictured left and right before the accident) is expected to ‘heal like a saint’, his father says. The youngster is expected to be released from hospital this week but will have to wear a large metal brace
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