Teen struck by bullet on CTA bus home from hospital

CHICAGO (WLS) -- The 15-year-old boy who was struck by a bullet while riding the CTA bus home from school is home from the hospital and spoke exclusively with ABC7 Eyewitness News.

Ulises Triano would have gotten off the 94 bus at 65th and California, but the bus never made it that far. He said he had been sitting on the left side of the bus, but got up to move to the right side of the bus for a more comfortable seat. The entire bus stopped.

Triano looks like a perfectly normal teenager; perhaps even happier.

"I feel like God's been good to me, given me a lot of luck," he said.

He's still here thanks to just a few centimeters.

"I felt like I was too young to... I still have a long life to live," Triano said.

Wednesday afternoon Triano boarded the bus home from Walter Peyton College Prep.

"I had just gotten some snacks for the ride," he said.

As his bus crossed 63rd at California, just two blocks shy of his stop, everything changed.

"At first I thought I was sleeping," Triano said. "I crashed my head against the window. Next thing you know, I was on the ground and I was just looking at my feet and I just see a bunch of blood coming down. I turned to the left and there was a lady with a daughter and she screamed, 'Oh my god, he got shot.'"

A bullet, fired from blocks away according to police, shattered the window next to Triano's seat.

"At first I thought there was an earthquake because from my chin upwards I could feel my face, but other than that I couldn't feel my body," he said.

But he still didn't really get it.

"At that moment I still thought there was an earthquake, like, I gotta get out of the bus. There's sirens going off, the bus is shaking, this isn't safe, I have to get out of the bus," he recalled.

By the time his family made it to the hospital, he was the strong one.

"I didn't' want them to cry because I knew everything would be alright," Triano said.

And it is. After just two days in the hospital he's back home, with a few staples and an appetite.

Triano said the first thing he wanted to eat was his mother's homemade Mexican food. He said he's still having a little difficulty feeling his left arm, and it hurts when he chews, but otherwise he's perfectly fine.

He said he will be back at school in about a week.