FARMINGTON, UT (KSL/CNN) – A 7-year-old boy ended up in the hospital on Christmas after hurting his eye with a toy gun.
This wasn’t a BB gun or any gun that shoots a projectile at all. It was a toy laser gun, and the battery blew up in his face.
“Today, it was Christmas. I hurt my eye,” Kempton Kirkwood said.
He is healing and will be OK.
Christmas is meant to be remembered but not like this.
He got a lot of cool gifts this year, but had his eye on something extra special – a Sharper Image laser tag gun.
When he opened it Christmas morning, though, something wasn’t right.
A battery got stuck, and the laser tag gun started to get hot. That’s when the battery exploded.
“It just kind of popped and exploded in his face,” said Lesha Kirkwood, his mother.
Home security camera footage shows exactly how it happened.
“When I was getting the battery out, I saw stuff come out of it into my eye. It hurt a lot,” Kempton said.
HIs family rushed him to the emergency room.
The eye suffered corneal abrasions but should heal fully with no long-term damage if he uses eye drops and ointment for about seven days, Lesha said the doctor told them.
His mom knows an accident like this is rare, but she wants to warn other parents just in case.
“If you sense something going wrong, kind of just trust your instinct. If there’s a battery and it’s heating up, get as far away from it as possible,” Kirkwood said.
“It was scary and I was brave,” Kempton said.
The family suspects the problem is with the gun and not the battery used, citing a similar instance that happened in San Antonio with a different brand of batteries.
The toy gun’s manufacturer, Merch Source, asked the Kirkwoods to send them receipts for their medical bills.
A representative from the company said the Kirkwoods will receive a box for them to return the guns in, and that they will conduct an investigation into why the product malfunctioned.
The family does not plan to file a lawsuit.
