CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Alexis Strickland said she was at the Fourth of July SkyShow celebration in uptown with her family, watching the fireworks, when all of sudden she felt a pain in her foot.
"I'm recording and then all of a sudden it felt like something hit my foot like rock," said Strickland, a rising senior at Sun Valley High School.
Strickland’s mother discovered it wasn't a rock.
"When she took my shoe off, it was a bullet inside my shoe,” Strickland said.
The 17-year-old’s foot was bleeding, but she kept her cool.
"I didn’t want to cause a scene, because when you cause a scene everyone starts running," she said.
After paramedics wrapped her foot, all Alexis wanted to do was get out of there. Her family left while the fireworks were still going on.
"They (police) told me, ‘Oh it could have just been someone shooting in the air, and it could have bounced off and hit in my foot.’"
Police told her the bullet was from a .22 rifle. It punctured her shoe on the right side, from the direction of the fireworks.
Strickland called the experience a miracle.
She was wearing two pairs of socks that night, and her light-up shoes were padded.
She said her senior year as an athlete at Sun Valley High could have easily been over.
"If I had any other type of shoes on, it probably would have hit my foot, I probably would not have been walking,” Strickland said.
Police don't believe the shooter was near the celebration or targeting the crowd. No one has been arrested.
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