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John Hollenhorst ReportingA Sandy woman considers herself lucky to be alive.
Shelly: "Just think, if that bullet goes up, it has to come down."
A bullet fell nearly straight out of the sky and hit her. It was fired by someone in the parking lot of a distant night club. Her injury over the weekend was painful, not serious, but the lesson is stark and clear.
If you fire a gun into the air, someone you don't know may become a target. You've seen it on the news. Guns fired skyward in anger or celebration, and in the movies bad guys and good guys do it. It wasn't so amusing when someone tried it in the parking lot of the Sandy Station.
Sgt. Victor Quezada, Sandy Police Dept.: "All we know is that somebody shot two rounds into the air, which is a foolish thing to do."
One of those bullets went way, way up, and came down about one third of a mile away, onto the roof of an RV. Shelly was sleeping. She caught a round on the back of her leg.
Shelly, Victim: "I heard like a loud clap and then an excruciating pain and I grabbed my leg and started screaming."
Dave, Shelly's Husband: "I heard her screaming with my ear plugs in. And I can 't hear nothing when I got my ear plugs in, but I could hear her screaming."
Shelly wound up with a nasty bruise and a damaged muscle. The bullet was a 45, Full Metal Jacket. The ceiling has a small bullet hole. If it had hit Shelly in the head, she figures she'd be dead.
Shelly: "I know the bullet was guided. God gave me a little pinch to remind me that I'm around and didn't do any more damage than it did."
It's elementary physics of course, although it was an apple, not a bullet that hit Newton in the head. Science says when a bullet is fired into the air, gravity eventually takes over. It begins to drop like a rock tossed from a skyscraper.
Prof. John DeFord, Physics Dept., Univ. of Utah: "And for a gun of this type it will be falling on the order of 400 or 500 feet a second."
That's more than 300 miles an hour. In a populated area, shooting up is like firing randomly at the city.
Prof. John DeFord: "It's going to come down and you don't want to be there."
In other words, scientifically speaking, it is a foolish thing to do.
Contrary to some claims that a falling bullet won't do damage, the bullet ripped through six inches of wood, rubber and insulation and injured her, even covered in heavy blankets.
Police say they have some leads on the person who fired the gun.
