Shooting Survivor Shielded by Friend Learns of 'Miracle' Miss

Doctors have found a bullet fragment lodged in the neck of a 10-year-old Minneapolis boy days after he reported that his life was saved when his friend shielded him during last week's shooting. Weston Halsne, a fifth grader at Annunciation Catholic School, was at Mass on Wednesday when a shooter opened fire through the church's stained-glass windows. Weston said he was "two seats away" from the windows when shots rang out. He said he ducked under a pew and his friend, Victor, was shot while shielding him. "I think I got, like, gunpowder on my neck," added Weston, per NBC News. But a hospital visit revealed it was actually a piece of bullet that had just missed his carotid artery—what doctors called a "miracle" outcome.

A GoFundMe campaign describes the fragment as "dangerously close" to the artery, per CNN. "If it went any further, he would've died," Weston's father, Grant Halsne, tells NBC. The family is now waiting for surgery to remove the fragment, hopefully early this week. The expectation is for a full recovery, though the emotional scars linger. "He's scared of loud noises," Halsne says of his son, noting Weston also fears being left alone. Two people were killed and 21 people injured in the shooting, up from an initial count of 18 wounded, according to a revised tally shared by police on Sunday. It's unclear if Weston is included in the new count.