Doctors have discovered a bullet fragment lodged perilously close to the carotid artery in the neck of Weston Halsne, a 10-year-old boy who survived the mass shooting at Annunciation Catholic School in Minneapolis last week. The fragment was initially mistaken for gunpowder by the boy, who told reporters after the attack: 'I think I got, like, gunpowder on my neck.'
Weston's father, Grant Halsne, told NBC News that a doctor described his son's survival as a 'miracle', adding: 'If it went any further, he would’ve died.' The fifth-grader is expected to undergo surgery to remove the fragment later this week and is anticipated to make a full recovery. His aunt, Allison Hawes, confirmed the fragment's dangerous proximity to the carotid artery on a fundraising page.
During the shooting, Weston recounted running under a pew and covering his head as shots fired by the alleged shooter, Robin Westman, came through stained-glass windows. He described how his friend Victor Greenawalt jumped on top of him to shield him. Greenawalt's uncle, Mike Kelly, said his nephew's 'selfless acts' helped spare lives, though Victor and his sister were injured.
The shooting, which occurred on 24 February, left two children dead—Fletcher Merkel, 8, and Harper Moyski, 10—and injured 21 others, most of them children. The suspect was found dead at the rear of the church with an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound, having fired around 120 shots from three different guns, according to Minneapolis police.
Other injured survivors include Genevieve Bisek, 11, shot in the neck and listed as 'satisfactory'; Sophia Forchas, 12, in critical condition; Lydia Kaiser in 'very serious condition'; David Haeg, 6, in a paediatric intensive care unit; and Astoria Safe, 10, grazed on the forehead. Safe told the Minneapolis Star Tribune that she helped push two children's heads down when the bullets started flying, initially thinking the sounds were fireworks.
Minneapolis police chief Brian O'Hara said the suspect 'clearly had a deranged obsession with previous mass shooters' and committed the act 'with the intention of causing as much terror, as much trauma, as much carnage as possible for their own personal notoriety.' The motive remains under investigation, with political debate emerging over the shooter's transgender identity and gun control measures.
