The girl was shot through the left cheek, and the bullet from a .22-caliber handgun is lodged behind her left ear, according to her mother, who is counting her blessings this Christmas.
The mother, who declined to be named, said her daughter “has a long road ahead of her.” She said the wound will need to heal first before the bullet can be removed from the back of her jaw.
“She’s doing all right,” the mother said. “God was definitely with her.”
The mother said her daughter’s friends have been to see her on Tuesday at Dayton Children’s Hospital, including the boy who accidentally shot her daughter.
The mother said after her daughter was shot at her friend’s house, she ran about a block to her grandparents’ home around the corner on Chamberlain Road. The girl’s grandmother is a registered nurse.
“That probably saved her,” the mother said. “She ran as quick as she could.”
Medics found the girl, a junior at Middletown High School, at her grandparents’ home and rushed her to the Kettering Emergency Room in Franklin before she was transferred to Dayton Children’s Hospital.
As for the teenage boy who accidentally shot the girl, the mother said, “my heart goes out to him. He’s truly terrified.”
“I am sure he’s devastated and he’ll have to live with this the rest of his life,” she said.
In a release issued Monday night, Warren County Sheriff’s Sgt. Brian Hounshell said, “at this time, this incident appears to be an accidental shooting.”
Hounshell said the investigation was ongoing and no other information would be available about the incident that happened about 5:45 p.m. Monday.
The teen boy called 911 for help.
During the exchange with the dispatcher, the teen said, “So, I was holding this gun and I didn’t know it was loaded or cocked, and I pulled the trigger, and I didn’t think it was cocked, and it went off, and we need an ambulance immediately.”
When the dispatcher asked who shot the girl, the teen said, “Me. I didn’t know the gun was loaded.”
According to dispatch records, the teen said the 16-year-old girl had been shot in the jaw/cheek area and there was some serious bleeding. He told the dispatcher that the teenage girl was alert and breathing when she left the residence and ran to her grandparents’ home.
Carlisle police Chief Michael Bruck said police rounded up the youths who were at the residence where the accidental shooting happened for questioning. Bruck requested that the Warren County Sheriff’s Office conduct the investigation into the shooting of the teen.
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