NASHVILLE, Tenn. (WKRN) – Inside the doors of the Monroe Carell Jr. Children’s Hospital at Vanderbilt, doctors and nurses are known for diagnosing and treating childhood illnesses and injuries. However, one injury that has doctors wanting answers.

“This is a public health crisis,” said Dr. Kelsey Gastineau with the Monroe Carell Jr. Children’s Hospital at Vanderbilt as she spoke about gun-related injuries. “We were a group of pedestrians and trauma surgeons who see this every day. Like I said, this is the leading cause of death for kids in this country, and we were seeing kids come in time and time again. We are seeing the short- and long-term effects of our patients in our communities.”

The study came after the 2023 Child Fatality Annual Report revealed homicide as the leading cause of death among children in Tennessee. Doctors wanted to take a look further into the aftereffects of firearm-related injuries on the children who survived.

“For every child who dies from a firearm injury, which is the most horrific consequence or outcome, two to three times that number of kids and teens suffer a non-fatal firearm injury, but what we don’t really know a lot about is what the lives of those kids look like afterward,” Gastineau explained.

The study identified more than 2,000 children with non-fatal firearm injuries all showed an increased risk in the following:

• Hospitalization
• Emergency department visits
• Outpatient visits

“Kids that suffer from non-fatal firearm injuries were coming back to the hospital more, coming back to the emergency department more, and coming back to the pediatrician more often, compared to those who did not suffer from firearm injuries,” Gastineau explained. “We know that 50% of children who have a firearm injury and go home have significant morbidity, meaning they have spinal cord injuries, they have significant abdominal injuries, and now they have gastrostomy tubes, so they have to be fed through their bellies and not by their mouths anymore.”

Gastineau said children go to the hospital for many reasons; the only difference is firearm injuries are preventable.

“This is something that non-gun owners and gun owners can really have a hand in reducing the burden of firearm injuries in kids,” she said. “This is something that impacts my patients in my community and I cannot do anything else until I can no longer say that firearms are the leading cause of death for children.”

The hospital has a program called “Be Smart for Kids” that promotes gun ownership while encouraging the reduction of deaths involving children at the hands of guns.