A woman finally had a bullet removed from her back after being shot 15 years ago in a crossfire.
Nursing Assistant Erica Miles was just a high school student when she was caught in the middle of a terrifying shootout and had the shrapnel lodged inside her body ever since.
However, after the bullet shifted inside and began nearing the surface of the skin of her lower back, Erica was forced to seek help to get it taken out with her ordeal at the front and centre in the next episode of Stuck.
‘Back in 2005, when I was in high school, after a football game my friends and I were waiting on our rides, and we end up being innocent bystanders caught in the middle of two groups of people shooting at each other,’ she recalled of the incident in a clip exclusively shared with Metro.co.uk.
‘I ended up getting shot in the back, I felt the burning sensation. They said it was too close to my spine at the time and that they didn’t want to take it out.’
Erica admitted that she had long forgotten about the object inside her until it quickly turned into a scary and painful problem.
‘I never thought about it, it never bothered me until the night that I felt it on the surface of my skin,’ she said.
‘And I knew that’s what it was. I was actually scared because I knew it shouldn’t have been in that place; it was in the top portion of my back, and it moved down to the lower portion.’
Luckily, General Surgeon Dr George Crawford was on hand to help remove the bullet and he explained that it’s actually uncommon for doctors to remove the shrapnel from shooting victims straight away.
‘The reason why is that you usually will cause a bigger problem going in to get it,’ he said.
‘People get shot all the time and we never remove bullets. That’s kind of a TV thing; we leave all bullets in unless they are stuck in a vessel or a joint.’
Making the decision to remove the object once and for all, Dr Crawford wheeled Erica into surgery before putting her under general anaesthetic.
After locating the bullet, he made a small incision into Erica’s back. As blood oozed out, he dug around inside Erica’s body and notices some changes to the anatomy of her back.
Using a pair of small forceps, Dr Crawford carefully wiggled the bullet free, pulling it from Erica’s back 15 years after she was shot.
‘That’s a bullet extraction,’ he announced triumphantly. ‘Unlike the movies, we don’t have a metal basin to drop it in,’ he added, dropping the bullet into a plastic container.
Thankfully, after finally having the bullet removed from her back, Erica’s recovery was straightforward.
‘After the surgery, the recovery was fine. I didn’t have any issues or concerns. I healed like normal. I was okay,’ she said.
‘I am so grateful to Dr Crawford; I am just glad that I wasn’t in any pain, and I was glad that the bullet was out of my back.’
Stuck airs weekly from 10pm Tuesday 29th March on Quest Red, and stream on discovery+.
