Gun failure ruled out in Army shooting incident: Officer

Taichung, Sept. 23 (CNA) Taiwan's Army said Tuesday it had ruled out a possible weapon malfunction in its investigation into a shooting incident that left a male conscript severely injured in Taichung the previous day.

The conscript's rifle was inspected at an Army repair depot, which found "no damage to the gun or its chamber," Major General Cheng Chieh-yuan (陳傑元) of the 10th Army Corps said at a press briefing.

During an exercise on Monday, the conscript, surnamed Shao (邵), was hit on the left side of the face by a bullet from his own gun, according to Cheng.

Shao was the last and only conscript who was firing at that point in the exercise, which ruled out the possibility that he was accidentally hit by another trainee, Cheng said.

On Tuesday morning, the weapon, along with surveillance footage of the incident, was handed over to the Taichung District Prosecutors Office for further investigation, he said.

As of Tuesday afternoon, Shao was in stable condition at Tri-Service General Hospital in Taipei, where he had been transferred following 11 hours of surgery at Taichung's Wuri Lin Shin Hospital, according to Lin Ming-hui (林明輝), superintendent of the Taichung hospital.

At a press conference Tuesday morning, Lin said the patient was in a coma and bleeding heavily when he was brought to Wuri Lin Shin Hospital on Monday afternoon.

Shao sustained an open facial fracture on the left side, with his left eyeball severely injured, and multiple metal fragments were found lodged in his brain, according to doctors at Wuri Lin Shin Hospital.