‘I didn’t know what to do:’ Juarez-Lincoln High School reacts after being grazed in the face by stray bullet
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A 17-year-old girl was grazed by a stray bullet while unloading groceries outside her home near West Mile 8 and Iowa Road, the Hidalgo County Sheriff's Office said.
Amairany Mendoza, a junior at Juarez-Lincoln High School, was on a video call with her best friend Saturday afternoon when the bullet hit her ear.
"Out of nowhere, I felt a bang on my ear — it felt hot — so I grabbed my ear, and my hands were covered in blood," Mendoza said. "At that moment, I went into shock and panicked; I didn't know what to do."
She didn't hear the shot but said she felt the pain immediately.
Mendoza's mother took her to a hospital where she received six stitches between her cheek and ear.
"I'm processing it, trying to come to terms with it as best I can, but it really is traumatic," Mendoza said.
She said the hardest part has been sleeping. Mendoza said every time she closes her eyes, the moment plays out in her head again.
Mendoza said gunfire is common in her neighborhood, happening almost every day of the week.
The Hidalgo County Sheriff's Office is investigating and looking for the person who fired the bullet.
"People just pull out the guns and start shooting up in the air thinking that it's OK and it's not OK," Raul Gonzalez, a spokesperson for the sheriff’s office, said. "They're going to travel; they're gonna hit somebody."
Gonzalez said the charge could be elevated from injury to a child to deadly conduct.
Mendoza hopes no one else has to go through what she did.
“They should be very careful about where they aim when they fire a bullet, because this time it was me, but in the future, you never know what might happen," Mendoza said.
The investigation is ongoing. Anyone with any information is urged to call the Hidalgo County Sheriff's Office at 956-383-8114 or Crime Stoppers at 956-668-8477.
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