BANGOR – A local man died Wednesday of self-inflicted gunshot wounds after he shot himself with a small caliber handgun in the woods behind Downeast School.

The body of 23-year-old Brandon Giger of Bangor was discovered shortly after 11:30 a.m. when neighbors of the Moosehead Boulevard school reported hearing gunshots, according to Bangor police Lt. Tim Reid.

“We received a report of a shot being fired in the woods,” he said Wednesday. “It does not appear to be suspicious.”

Giger’s body was found 30 feet into the woods, not far from a playground where children participating in a Bangor Parks and Recreation program played Wednesday morning.

Cassie Hurst, 14, and her friend, Lauren Savoy, 14, heard two shots and then saw a woman with blood on her shirt leave the woods, screaming and crouching on the ground.

“She came out saying some guy’s dead, and he shot himself,” Savoy said, adding that the woman referred to Giger as her baby’s father. “She started screaming like, ‘Oh my God, oh my God he shot himself.'”

A younger woman joined the crying woman in the woods, comforting her as they came back out, Hurst said.

“The lady she took with her was holding her, and they were crying together,” Hurst said while a few young children climbed on the playground and onlookers chatted in their driveways.

Giger apparently left a residence on Moosehead Boulevard and headed toward the woods, later followed by his girlfriend, Reid said.

Parks and Recreation staff at the scene declined to comment.

The staff sent the approximately 20 children home immediately after the gunshots, and one staffer called police, the young girls said.

Giger’s body was loaded into a Brookings-Smith hearse about three hours later following an inspection by the state medical examiner.

Hurst said she became frightened after realizing the shots were more than just someone shooting a BB gun in the woods, which she hears often.

“I never expected it to happen here,” she said, forcing herself to look away from where police prepared to remove the body in a sunny field behind the school.

The parks and recreation program was closed for the remainder of the day Wednesday but will resume today, according to parks and recreation staff.