FORT LAUDERDALE, FLA. (WSVN) - A 7-year-old boy has left the hospital after spending the night there after he was shot by a stray bullet while celebrating the Fourth of July at his grandmother’s Fort Lauderdale home.
A cellphone picture shows Jason Puentes, alone but in good spirits, at Broward Health Medical Center, Sunday.
His grandmother, Balbina Ibarra, said the child was playing in her swimming pool, at around 9:30 p.m. Saturday, at her residence located along Northwest Avenue and 62nd Street.
“He just came out from the pool and his arm was bleeding. He comes screaming, and I’m scared because he was holding his arm and bleeding, bleeding a lot. We took him immediately to the hospital, and it’s a bullet inside of his arm,” she said.
Puentes said, “I was in the pool, and then something hit my arm, and I was bleeding a lot.”
Ibarra believes the bullet came down during celebratory gunfire.
Misael Gonzalez-Sequera, whose car what hit by another stray-bullet, said, “There’s supposed to be fireworks. We don’t expect it to be bullets raining from the sky. It could be your wife, it could be your kids, it could be any of your family relatives.”
Mayra Soto, Puentes’s mother, said, “I called 911 right away and the ambulance came. I was a mess. He was actually calm. I was the mess, but everything came out perfect, and the bullet didn’t damage him or anything. I can’t believe it actually happened. I mean I see it on the news all the time, but I never thought it would happen to us.”
Soto had a message for anyone who thinks firing a gun into the air is a way to celebrate. “Be careful because that bullet has to come down, and you don’t know who you’re hurting,” she said.
Police confirmed the child was shot in the arm.
Ibarra said, “The bullet didn’t touch his bone, so the medical [staff], they do a good job. They took the bullet out last night.”
The concerned grandmother also has a message for anyone who is opening fire for fun.
“You see what happened to my family yesterday? It’s a tragedy,” she said, “so I ask people, please stop shooting in the air, because you don’t know where the bullets are going to go. You hurt innocent people like my grandchild.”
Due to the coronavirus pandemic, no one was able to visit Puentes at Broward Health.
“With everything that’s going on right now, it is very hard for us because we can’t even see him in the hospital,” said Ibarra.
Police continue to search for the person responsible and urge anyone who heard gunshots at that time in that area to give them a call.
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