Donald Trump’s pick for US Surgeon General was involved in a tragic gun accident that killed her father when she was only 13 years old.
Dr Janette Nesheiwat was a teenager when she accidentally knocked a loaded gun over, which fired upon impact and fatally shot her father in the head.
The incident occurred in February 1990 at her family's home in Umatilla, Florida, according to a report by the New York Times.
A police report reviewed by the newspaper states that Nesheiwat was reaching for a pair of scissors in a tackle box on a shelf above her father's bed when the container tipped over and spilled its contents, including a handgun.
The gun discharged, and the bullet hit her father in the head. He died in a hospital the next day.
Though she does not frequently speak about the incident, Nesheiwat said it inspired her to become a doctor. She worked for 15 years as an urgent care doctor for the New York City-based CityMD clinic chain.
She gained some prominence among Republicans when she began appearing on Fox News as a medical contributor during the Covid-19 pandemic.
If she is confirmed, Nesheiwat will replace sitting US Surgeon General Dr Vivek Murthy. He served as the Surgeon General during the start of Trump's first presidential administration but was dismissed in 2017. Joe Biden appointed him to the spot again in 2021.
Murthy has been a proponent for treating gun violence — including accidental gun deaths like the one Nesheiwat experienced — as a public health issue. That stance has left him unpopular with Republican lawmakers, who have gone so far as to ban the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention from researching gun violence as a public health issue.
Despite her tragic experience with gun violence, there is no indication that Nesheiwat will break with fellow Republicans on the issue.
In an upcoming memoir she's writing, Nesheiwat mentions her father's death in the opening lines of the book, according to the New York Times.
“When I was 13 years old, I helplessly watched my dear father dying from an accident as blood was spurting everywhere,” she writes. “I couldn’t save his life."
The book, titled “Beyond the Stethoscope: Miracles in Medicine,” does not mention that he died as a result of being shot accidentally by a loaded family firearm, according to the Times.
