'It Felt Like Something Blew Up in My Lap': Woman Bled for Days After July Fourth Injury — Then X-Rays Finally Got to the Bottom of It

Heather Charlebois was enjoying a July Fourth celebration with friends at an outdoor music venue when she heard "a loud pop" she assumed to be a firecracker.

Then the 42-year-old Florida woman, who was seated at a table at Cafe DaVinci in DeLand, felt pain in her right leg.

"Suddenly it felt like something blew up in my lap," Charelbois told WKMG-TV.

Heather Charlebois (Image source: WFTV-TV)

"I went to the bathroom and looked at my leg and that's when it started bleeding," she told the station. "It bled for the first couple days."

A surveillance video still showing Heather Charlebois leaving the table with a dark mark on her leg. (Image source: WKMG-TV)

Four days later, Charlebois posted a photo of her leg wound on Facebook, which friends said looked like a bullet hole. So she went to a hospital, got X-rays, and there it was — a .38-caliber bullet lodged in her thigh.

Image source: WFTV-TV

But doctors didn't want to remove it.

"They said it's because it's so close to the femoral artery they didn't want to take a chance of doing more damage," Charlebois told WKMG. "I'm going to get a second, maybe third opinion from other surgeons because I don't want it left in me."

Image source: WFTV-TV

DeLand police said the bullet was fired in the air nearby and landed in the courtyard; no bullet fragments were found at the scene, the station reported.

Charlebois told WKMG her leg still burns from the bullet and that she's trying to stay positive: "It's kind of surreal and cool and not cool, and it made me mad and it made me laugh."

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