Bend man shoots himself in the leg, crashes on route to hospital

Published 3:22 pm Wednesday, August 9, 2023

The main entrance of St. Charles Bend campus.

A Bend man shot himself in the leg while cleaning his gun at home, and then drove himself to the hospital before crashing into a parking structure at a medical facility near St. Charles Bend, police say.

At 10:46 p.m. on Tuesday, the Bend Police Department responded to a 911 call from the man’s friend, who said his friend shot himself and then crashed his car into a pole at St. Charles Bend, the department said Wednesday in a news release.

When police arrived they, found a 2019 silver Subaru Legacy crashed into a pillar by the sidewalk near The Center Orthopedic & Neurosurgical Care & Research at 2200 NE Neff Road. They also found the man lying by an entrance to the The Center with a gunshot wound to his left thigh.

When officers arrived, a security guard was helping the injured man. Officers had to use a second tourniquet to stop the bleeding. The man was then transferred to the emergency department at St. Charles Bend.

The injured man’s friend, who called police, said he and his friend had been shooting their handguns earlier before returning to the injured man’s apartment in the 1600 block of NE Purcell Boulevard, where they drank bourbon and cleaned their guns, police said. The injured man, according to his friend, accidentally pulled the trigger and shot himself. He soon after drove himself to the hospital but lost consciousness, causing the crash.

Bend police did not name the individuals involved in the incident.

St. Charles Bend was placed in a lockdown at the time of the incident, and the case remains under investigation, the news release said.

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