‘Unfathomable’: Boy finds discarded, loaded gun in family’s Huntersville backyard

HUNTERSVILLE, N.C. — A Huntersville man said his son found a discarded, loaded gun Sunday while raking their home’s backyard.

“He sees what looks like metal on the ground, and so he starts rummaging through the leaves thinking, maybe it’s a toy,” said Mike Hege. “Ultimately, (he) picks up, what I didn’t really know at the time, to be a loaded gun.”

Hege thought of the unimaginable.

“It’s unfathomable what might have happened as an alternative outcome,” Hege said. “If he had picked it up the wrong way. If his sister was in the yard.”

Hege said he ran to his son calmly.

“It was a loaded magazine,” the father said. “One in the chamber, safety off, and literally, he’s pointing it at me. And so, fortunately, he listened.”

Hege said he called the police after the gun was safely out of his son’s hand.

The Huntersville Police Department confirmed the firearm was stolen out of Charlotte and it isn’t clear if it was connected with another crime.

“A bad person was relatively close, tied to an incident, and was looking to ditch the evidence,” Hege speculated. “And we believe he threw it in the yard.”

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Hege said the incident sparked an opportunity to have a talk with his children.

“We did use that moment to educate our little ones and our older ones about gun safety and what you should do in an instance when you find a handgun,” he said.

There were no injuries.

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