Surgery for girl, 4, shot with 100 pellets by boy, 8
A four-year-old girl in China's Hunan province has been left with steel shards lodged in her bones and organs after she was shot with more than 100 pellets by her eight-year-old playmate.
The boy allegedly shot his friend in a bid to "scare her away" from an old house in their village, reported the Daily Mail.
The girl was rushed to a hospital after other youngsters raised the alarm.
She suffered injuries to her heart and liver after the pellets ripped through her rib cage and down her arm.
She underwent a four-hour operation, but more than 100 pellets are still lodged in her body, according to local news site People's Daily Online.
Her father Chang Yi said the children were playing in an old house when the boy took a gun from the second storey.
He said the boy fired the gun "possibly to scare the other kids away" and hit his daughter "simply because she was standing in front of the group".
The girl's mother said the family will not press charges against the boy as they are friends with his parents.
Ms Huang Bin, a senior nurse at the Intensive Care Unit at Xiangya Hospital of Central South University, said the bullets also affected her heart and liver, reported the Mirror.
She said: "The bullets are relatively small and move without much force. More surgery could cause additional damage to the child's body.
"Some (pellets) can stay inside if they do not affect her organs."
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