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The dramatic 911 call made by a Georgia police chief after he shot his wife has been released — and she can be heard moaning in the background as he calmly explains what happened.
“Gunshot wound, accidental,” the man says, who is later identified as Peachtree City police chief William McCollom.
The 4:17 a.m. emergency call, which took place Thursday and was released today, has McCollom on the phone saying how “the gun was in the bed, I went to move it to put it to the side and it went off.”
He does not identify himself for several minutes, and when he does he uses his official title rather than his name. When the operator repeats his title back to him, he says: “Yeah unfortunately yes.”
He told the operator that his 58-year-old wife, identified as Margaret McCollom, was asleep at the time that the gun went off.
Georgia Police Chief Says He Accidentally Shot Wife
“She’s starting to have trouble breathing now so it must be internal,” he said of her bleeding.
“Come on guys, get here,” he is heard saying to the operator about the emergency responders who were on their way during the call.
Margaret McCollom was later airlifted to a hospital in Atlanta and remains in critical, but stable condition.
There was some confusion about the number of shots fired, and though he is heard telling the 911 operator that his wife was shot twice, investigators have since said that she was only shot once.
The Georgia Bureau of Investigation was notified of the incident an hour after it happened and have launched an investigation, as is customary when a police officer is involved in a shooting.
During a Thursday news conference, GBI spokeswoman Sherry Lang said that McCollom is not being held but has been cooperative with the investigation.
