That day in 1948 when 2 teens were tragically killed in separate reckless gun accidents in Lachine and LaSalle

  Saturday 28 August 1948 saw one of the.. nah.. two of the most heartbreaking gun deaths of all time in separate incidents not too far from one another in Southwest Montreal.
   Alexandre Ayotte, 51, was with his son Guy Ayotte, 13, at their place on Newman Boulevard in LaSalle at 8:30 p.m on a Saturday evening.
   Guy was one of 12 children living in a one-room wooden shack in a remote and unpopulated part of the boulevard.
   Guy approached his dad carrying his father's .22 calibre rifle.
   He asked his father Alexandre to imitate the William Tell maneuver by shooting an item off of his head.
    The boy covered his head with a raincoat and the placed a board atop his head and then put a battered fedora atop of it.
   His father, while seated in a chair six feet away, alongside his wife, aimed the rifle.
   He pulled the trigger and missed, hitting the boy in the head.
   The parents moved the child inside the house but he perished 10 minutes later.
   Provincial police detained the father for a coroner's court hearing two days later. Alexandre claimed that he had no idea that the gun was loaded when he pulled the trigger. 
*

  Earlier that same afternoon at Nick's Snack Bar 805 Provost Street, in Lachine 13-year-old Mabel Dickson of 685 7th Ave. went to get soft drinks at a restaurant with her cousin Shirley-Ann Dickson and Shirley McGuire..
   The girls were attending the wedding of Georgianna Dickson, Mabel's sister at a  nearby church in Lachine and had just scooted off for a few minutes.
   Patrick McGuire, 14, Shirley's brother, was working the counter and decided to impress the girls by showing off a .32 Iver-Johnson gun that the restaurant kept in case of robberies.
   He showed the girls how he loaded the guy by inserting two bullets in the chambers.
   But the gun wouldn't close so he banged it against he refrigerator. He was apparently holding the trigger down when doing this.
  The gun went off. 
  The bullet flew right into Mabel Dickson's head, killing her about 90 minutes later at St. Joseph's Hospital in Lachine.