By Seattle Times staff
A 4-year-old boy shot his mother with a semiautomatic shotgun in rural South Kitsap County Monday afternoon, according to the Kitsap County Sheriff's Office.

The mother, 23, was taken to Tacoma General Hospital with nonlife-threatening injuries, according to sheriff's spokesman Scott Wilson.

The woman was on the phone with her back to her son and didn't hear him loading the cartridge into the weapon. She said she hadn't been aware that her son had gained access to the shotgun, according to Wilson.

The woman was shot on her left side.

Earlier, the boy's father had given him a shotgun cartridge, according to Wilson. He reportedly did so because the boy was curious about firearms.

Deputies responded to the scene in the 10400 block of Glenwood Road Southwest, south of Bremerton, at 4:16 p.m.