DELTONA, Fla. -- It is nothing short of a miracle that a 3-year-old Deltona boy survived after he picked up his mother's gun and started playing with it before shooting himself in the stomach.

---

MOM TALKS: "He's A Little Boy And He Loves Playing With Guns"
SLIDESHOW: Images From Scene After Boy Shoots Self
VIDEO REPORT: 3-Year-Old Expected To Be Okay After Shooting Self

---

The incident happened inside the house on Concert Road (see map). The boy had to go into his mother's room, dig around in her nightstand, get the gun out and take it to his own bedroom. His mother said she didn't have any idea what was happening until the gun went off.

"I freaked out. I freaked out. I cried. I grabbed him and threw him up against me to stop the bleeding and just flew to the hospital," said mother Tracy Decarr.

It was a call from hospital officials that led sheriff's investigators to converge on the small Deltona home Tuesday morning. Inside, they found a .40-caliber handgun that 3-year-old Brandon Cardona shot himself with.

"Could have been a whole lot worse. This child was playing with a gun. Just pointing in the wrong direction, just could have been a whole lot worse," said Brandon Haughty, Volusia County Sheriff's Office.

The gun was kept inside the house for protection, Decarr told Eywitness News. She said her son must have thought it was a toy.

"He's a little boy and he loves playing with guns and trucks and everything," Decarr said.

She said she's still not sure why the gun fired; he either tried to load it himself or there was a bullet in the chamber already and it barely missed killing him.

"He shot himself in the stomach right here and it went right back out of his skin right here," Decarr said pointing to her stomach. "He had the two holes and blood coming down and he had stuff all over him."

The boy and the family were not home Tuesday afternoon. He was taken to Arnold Palmer Children's Hospital in Orlando, but is expected to be okay. His mother, however, is expected to be charged with a felony for leaving the gun unsecured and for child neglect.