Dr. Janette Nesheiwat, President-elect Donald Trump‘s nominee for surgeon general, accidentally knocked over a gun when she was 13 years old, causing it to fire and fatally shoot her father in the head.

The full details of the 1990 incident, which Nesheiwat had only partially disclosed, was revealed in a New York Times report on Friday.

She has cited the tragic incident as inspiring her to go into medicine, but without mentioning her direct role, the newspaper reported.

“When I was 13 years old I helplessly watched my dear father dying from an accident as blood was spurting everywhere,” her forthcoming memoir begins. “I couldn’t save his life. This was the start of my personal journey in life to become a physician.”

The Times said Nesheiwat doesn’t specify how her father, a 44-year old chemist, died in the subsequent 260 pages.

Police records obtained by the Times recount that, in their Florida family home in February 1990, a teenage Nesheiwat was looking for a pair of scissors kept in a tacklebox on a shelf above her dad’s bed one early morning.

She knocked the container over and out fell a .380 caliber handgun, which then discharged and shot him in the head as he slept. He died in an Orlando hospital the next day.

“Something fell out of it and there was a loud noise,” she told police. “I saw blood on my father’s ear.” Police considered it a “freak accident.” After going to get a towel and ice to put on her father’s head, she called police.

Nesheiwat has cited her father’s death and her mother’s career in pediatric nursing as two foundational motivations for her decision to pursue medicine as a line of work.

She did not reply to messages left by the Times. Trump’s transition team did not immediately respond to a request for comment from the Daily Beast.

“As she says in her book, she became a physician because of her dad’s tragic accidental death,” the Trump transition team told the newspaper. “She became a physician to save lives, and that dedication to the lives of her fellow Americans is why President Trump nominated Dr. Nesheiwat to be our next Surgeon General. She and her family miss their father, and hope he’s proud of them.”

Nesheiwat’s career in practical medicine, such as working in urgent care clinics in New York and New Jersey, is what won her Trump’s endorsement for the job. But her older sister Julia is also a former homeland security advisor to the president-elect.

Julia’s husband is House Rep. Michael Waltz (R-FL), whom Trump said will be his national security adviser.

Her younger sister, Jaclyn, is a former fashion model and the wife of Scott Stapp, the lead singer of the hard rock band Creed.

Nesheiwat, meanwhile, is also—like several other of Trump’s planned nominees and appointees—a Fox News contributor.

“Dr. Nesheiwat will play a pivotal role in MAKING AMERICA HEALTHY AGAIN!,” Trump wrote, in a statement announcing his decision to tap her to lead the United States Public Health Service Commissioned Corps.

Earlier this year, the incumbent surgeon general, Dr. Vivek Murthy, declared gun violence a public health crisis.

It remains to be seen whether Nesheiwat will similarly campaign on the issue if she is confirmed.