Docs Sent Shooting Victim Home With a Band-Aid; Days Later, a Bullet

'She was having these terrible headaches and she felt something moving in her head'
By Arden Dier,  Newser Staff
Posted Feb 18, 2020 7:19 AM CST

A Miami woman wounded in a drive-by shooting was sent home from a hospital with a Band-Aid and antibiotics days before she was found to have a bullet lodged in her head, according to family. Shakena Jefferson was among three gay victims of the Feb. 11 shooting, which police are investigating as a possible hate crime. Doctors initially told Jefferson, who was released from the hospital within hours, that she'd suffered a graze wound near her left temple. But three days later, she still felt something was wrong. "She couldn't remember anything. She kept on repeating the same thing over and over," wife Janet Medley tells ABC News. "She was having these terrible headaches and she felt something moving in her head." Medley says she rushed Jefferson to another hospital on Friday. There, an X-ray showed a bullet in her head.

The 42-year-old underwent surgery the next day. She remained in Baptist Hospital of Miami on Monday. The pair now plan to sue the first hospital they visited, which WPLG identifies as Jackson South Medical Center. "They put the Band-Aid on her head, gave her antibiotics and just sent her home," says Medley. "We could have done that ourselves." Miami-Dade police have so far made no arrests in the shooting, in which gunmen on ATVs opened fire on a vehicle carrying two men as Medley and Jefferson were leaving their home. The passenger of the vehicle was left in critical condition with a gunshot wound to the head. "Some of the guys probably saw us kissing in the car," driver Clive Khouri tells WPLG through tears. "When I tried to speed off … they kept trying to shoot, shoot, shoot." (More drive-by shooting stories.)

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