10-year-old girl recalls being shot while watching TV inside West Englewood home: 'I was crying'
'I felt like I was going to pass away, and I wasn't going to get a chance to live'
CHICAGO (WLS) -- A 10-year-old girl was watching television with her little brother in her aunt's room in West Englewood on Thursday night.
Then, she heard the gunfire right outside of the window. She tried to run away before realizing she was shot. ABC7 spoke with the girl and her mother at the home where it all happened. They asked ABC7 not to show their faces, but to share their near-tragic story.
"I was crying," the girl said. "I felt like I was going to pass away, and I wasn't going to get a chance to live."
Those are sentiments no 10-year-old girl should ever have to feel.
"I feel like [God] gave my child a second chance, and me too, honestly," her mother said.
"I'm graced by living and surviving," the girl said.
But, for this one, it's an unfortunate reality. She's now left terrified in the supposed safety of her grandmother's home as she remembers the moment her life was almost taken away.
"We were just watching TV, and all I heard was gunshots," the girl recalled.
It was at her grandmother's place on Racine and 64th where shots were fired out near the back of the house, riddling multiple homes.
"I run out the room, and I went under the table. And, I looked at my hand and it was blood, and that's how I knew I was shot," the girl said.
"I applied pressure to the gunshot wound, and we just called the ambulance," her mother added.
The child was taken to Comer Children's Hospital in serious condition with a gunshot wound to her right thigh. The bullet was still lodged in her leg.
She was just released on Saturday morning, returning to the home where fear now dwells as police are still working to find out the motive behind the shooting.
"It brings back all of the memories," the girl said. "They should've never did this. They could've solved it. They could've sat down and talked. But, they didn't have to do this."
According to the ABC7 Data Team, so far this year in Chicago, nearly 250 minors have been shot. And in the case of the 10-year-old's shooting, police said, no one has been arrested.
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