A 21-year-old woman is crediting her bra strap with potentially saving her life during a shootout at a block party in Brooklyn.
Daniesa Murdaugh was one of 12 people hit by gunfire in the mass shooting late Saturday night. A 38-year-old man died of a head wound while 11 others, including Murdaugh, were injured.
But Murdaugh’s injuries might have been much worse if not for her bra strap, which stopped a bullet from burying itself in her spine.
“I believe God covered my baby,” Murdaugh’s mother, Odessa Watson, told local news station WQAD. “When EMS had cut her bra strap off, the bullet was sitting just on her bra strap.”
Photos show the slug broke the skin beside Murdaugh’s left shoulder blade, but the bullet didn’t go in because of her grey bra strap.
Murdaugh was treated for her injury at the hospital and released the following day.
“My bra strap — thank God it was thick enough to save it, because if it wasn’t there it would’ve went deeper,” she told WQAD.
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The New York Police Department is still hunting for at least two gunmen in connection with the shooting, which happened during the community of Brownsville’s annual Old Timers Day event.
Police still don’t know “who was shooting at who” or whether the incident was gang related, NYPD Chief of Detectives Dermot Shea told reporters on Monday. It’s also unclear whether the one deceased victim, 38-year-old James Pagan, was an intended target.
More than 2,000 people and 100 police officers were at the festival when the shots rang out, NYPD Commissioner James O’Neill said at a press conference.
The shooting has stirred up angry backlash among the residents of Brownsville, many of whom rallied on Monday near the park to denounce the violence.
“Brownsville in, violence out!” they chanted.
Murdaugh says she’s still feeling the pain of her injury. “It stings and it’s sore and I can’t put any pressure on my left side,” she told PIX11.
The emotional scars might take an even greater psychological toll on the way she views her neighbourhood.
“You can’t go outside and have fun without thinking somebody’s got a gun and I’ve got to run soon,” she said.
—With files from The Associated Press
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