Teen shot in the head is given last rites. Then he sat up and said hello, his mom says
By Lisa Gutierrez
Charles “Charlie” Quimby, 19, of Skowhegan, Maine was shot in the head with a BB gun over the weekend. Doctors told his mom he wouldn't survive so a priest gave Charlie the last rites, after which he started moving and saying hello.
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Doctors told Lauri Quimby that her son, Charlie, wouldn't survive what happened to him over the weekend.
A friend - an on-and-off acquaintance, according to Charlie's mom - allegedly shot Charlie in the forehead with a BB gun about noon on Sunday, according to WGME in Portland, Maine.
The metal BB shot into Charlie's skull through the right temple and wedged itself in his brain. Surgery to remove it was too risky, doctors at Eastern Maine Medical Center in Bangor told Quimby an hour after her son arrived at the hospital, she told local media.
So soon after that, with a group of Charlie's friends clustered around his hospital bed, a priest gave Charlie the last rites, the Bangor Daily News reported.
Less than an hour later, Quimby told the newspaper, Charlie began moving, sat up, and said hello.
“I’m telling you, it was right after the priest did his thing,” she told the newspaper. “I believe that that kind of played into it.”
Quimby described her son as a fighter.
“I know my son, he’s really strong,” she told the Daily News. "It just wasn’t meant to be that he’d die. You know when you can feel it?”
Charlie graduated from high school three weeks ago.
The BB is expected to cause lasting brain damage, his father, Jade Goodridge, told CentralMaine.com on Tuesday. The tiny metal intruder in his son's brain shows up clearly on X-rays, Goodridge said.
“It could affect his eyes and partial movement," Goodridge told CentralMaine.com. “He’s doing a little better. He’s going to make it; so far everything is good.”
Goodridge said he didn't "really know the facts of how it all went down,” but that he has been told the shooting was an accident.
After he was shot in Skowhegan, Charlie was flown by a LifeFlight helicopter to Bangor, according to the Daily News.
Skowhegan police told WGME in Portland they are working with state police to figure out what led to the shooting and if charges are warranted. They've collected the BB gun as evidence, the TV station reported.
No arrests have been made or charges filed. The shooter has been identified by local media as Charlie's friend, William McCarty, 20.
McCarty called 911 Sunday afternoon after he allegedly shot Charlie, the Daily News reported.
"I'm not sure why anyone would point a pellet gun at another individual, playing or not,” Skowhegan chief of police David Bucknam told WGME.
“It's just common sense wise, it just doesn't make sense but there's always a reason and it's our job to find out what that reason is, and when we do we'll assess it at that point."
Doctors were able to remove Charlie from a ventilator Monday afternoon and he's now breathing on his own, his mom told the Daily News.
