“Then in a few weeks we hope she will be ready to move to Atlanta, Georgia for rehab. She’s alert but not talking she can move both sides of hey body with some limitations.”
A Tennessee girl who is only 2 years old was hit by a pellet from a pellet gun while having a fun day playing on a backyard slide, police have said.
Young Ariel Salaices was hit by the pellet while playing outside with her siblings, who are 12 and 5, in the backyard of their house in Mountain City, Tennessee, about 150 miles northeast of Knoxville. The pellet was shot by another child police say.
Brown said that after being hit, Ariel tried to sprint over to her father. The girl was only able to run about 20 feet before she collapsed, Brown said.
The girl’s dad picked her up right away, put her in his vehicle and raced to the closest Johnson County emergency medical services room, Brown said to sources. Ariel was then taken in a helicopter 44-miles to the Johnson City Medical Center, and was transferred afterward to the East Tennessee Children’s Hospital in Knoxville.
At first the police had thought she was hit by a regular bullet and was looking for a suspect but later said it was a pellet gun fired by an unidentified child.
Ariel’s mother, Christina Salaices, said Ariel is “doing better.”
Christina said that Ariel will be scheduled to have a shunt placed in her head soon, “Then recovery and hopefully to Atlanta for rehab,” she added.
