Boy who went viral for saying his friend shielded him has bullet fragment in neck

Doctors discovered a bullet fragment in the neck of a 10-year-old boy who went viral for recounting how his friend jumped on top of him to shield him during a mass shooting at Annunciation Catholic Church in Minneapolis that killed two children and injured others.

Weston Halsne, a fifth-grade student at Annunciation Catholic School, was attending Mass on Wednesday when the shooting occurred. He recounted running under a pew and covering his head while shots came through the stained-glass windows, and said his friend Victor was shot while shielding him.

“I think I got, like, gunpowder on my neck,” he said after the shooting.

But doctors later discovered it was not just gunpowder that hit the 10-year-old’s neck, but a bullet fragment as well.

Weston’s father, Grant Halsne, told NBC News that the fragment came close to — but didn’t hit — the 10-year-old’s carotid artery, which a doctor described the as a “miracle.”

“If it [the bullet fragment] went any further, he would’ve died,” Grant Halsne said.

The Halsne family is waiting to confirm when the surgery to remove the fragment will be scheduled, but hopes it will be sometime early next week. The fragment is in a very sensitive area, but Weston is expected to make a full recovery, his father said.

Grant Halsne said the shooting has left his son scared and not wanting to be alone.

“He’s scared of loud noises,” the father said. “The kid to his left was killed.”

On Wednesday just before 8:30 a.m., 23-year-old Robin Westman fired a rifle through the side windows of Annunciation Catholic School’s church, aiming at children sitting in the pews.

Weston remembered thinking, “What is that?” when he heard the first gunshot. When he heard it again, he ran under the pew.

The student had practiced what to do during an active shooter situation, but never at the church, he said.

“I was like two seats away from the stained glass windows,” Weston said. “So, they were like, the shots were like right next to me.”

Westman was found dead at the rear of the church with an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound, according to search warrants. She was found dressed in black “tactical” gear and officials found approximately 120 shell casings from three different guns that she used, according to Minneapolis Police Chief Brian O’Hara.

The investigation into the shooting is ongoing.