MIAMI (WSVN) - A Liberty City teen is recovering from a gunshot wound he suffered during Fourth of July fireworks, and his father is counting his blessings following the close call.
A troubling South Florida tradition is to blame for sending a teen to the hospital.
Speaking with 7News on Friday, 13-year-old Ijamyn Gray Jr. said he was watching fireworks with friends outside his family’s apartment along the 1400 block of NW 72nd Street, at around 11 p.m., Thursday.
“As soon as, when they popped the fireworks, something went in my arm, and he had said, ‘[There’s] something in my skin,'” he said.
“He” in this case is the teen’s father, Ijamyn Gray Sr.
“Next thing I know, he comes running up the stairs right here towards me, and he’s like, ‘Dad, something hit me in my arm,'” said the father. “I pulled his shirt, like pulled it out, ‘boom,’ and a bullet popped out right there, and I’m like ‘Oh, you got shot!'”
The teen was taken to the hospital and treated for a gunshot wound.
“So that’s what it looks like,” said a nurse in cellphone video of the wound.
The victim’s father believes he was caught in the middle of carelessness — celebratory gunshots fired into the air — and one of them landed inches from his son’s head and neck.
It appears the teen’s T-shirt helped to stop the bullet.
“I know what it was: it was God’s grace and mercy that a shirt was used as a bulletproof vest for my son,” said his father. “Thank you, God, thank you, God, thank you, God.”
While we don’t know who pulled the trigger, the elder Gray said he believes there’s a good chance it was another teen.
“What if it would have been an inch up, a couple inches up to his neck or his head?” he said. “We got to find out through some way, how do we stop the gun violence in our community?”
The teenage Gray was not the only young person injured by gunshots on Thursday night. In Homestead, a woman watching fireworks was hit in the shoulder by a stray bullet. She was taken to the hospital in critical condition.
The father’s message to the community is to put the guns down.
In 2017 Gray Sr. started a mentoring program called Encouraging Dreamers Breaking Barriers, which mentors young people in the community. If you would like to learn more, click here.
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