Father points to 'miracle of God' after daughter survives falling bullet at fireworks (updated with map)

Stephanie Little was watching fireworks with hundreds of others when the bullet hit her.

“Because of some idiot shooting in the air my daughter will walk around for the rest of her life with a bullet in her,” says Stephanie’s father, Tim Little.

The 23-year-old from Florence, Miss., was visiting Destin on July Fourth with friends and was watching fireworks at the foot of Emerald Grande when a falling bullet sliced through her shoulder.

“She thought somebody hit her real hard on the shoulder and knocked her to the ground. She couldn’t breathe,” Tim said.

She was airlifted to Sacred Heart Hospital in Pensacola for treatment.

“Her friend called two minutes after it happened, and we came out that same night at 1:30 in the morning,” Tim said.

Stephanie is recovering at the hospital, but her father says he doesn’t know when she will be released.

Tim said the bullet hit her in the back top of the shoulder and zipped through her rib cage behind her heart and lungs and came to rest on her diaphragm.

“The lung surgeon said he has never seen anything like it,” he said. “It didn’t hit a bone, an artery or an organ. It is a miracle of god she is still alive.”

And the bullet will be a permanent reminder of the incident.

“It would take a terrible surgery to remove it,” Tim said.

Investigators are still investigating the incident, but Michele Nicholson, with the Okaloosa County Sheriff’s Office said the gun could have been fired from blocks away. In fact, an anonymous caller reports hearing what sounded like a gunshot in the vicinity of Ridgewood Avenue in Destin during that time frame. A homeowner in that area also found a spent round in their swimming pool the next day.

The incident was a rarity in Okaloosa County, deputies say. Mike Coup, Chief Deputy at Okaloosa County Sheriff’s office and a longtime officer, said he only remembers one other case like this.

In the mid-70s in Fort Walton Beach, a bullet fired from the corner of Hollywood and Beal struck and killed a child a block away on Highland Avenue.

“We had other cases where a weapon was discharged in the air, but never where someone else was struck,” he said. “People have to understand the carelessness of discharging those into the air. You should only fire a gun at ranges or places with good backdrop where the round can be captured.”

When Stephanie is released the family will return home where Stephanie will “get on with her life,” her father says.

“We just ask for prayers that she will continue to recover.”