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Lynn Woman's Life Changes Forever By Stray Bullet

LYNN (CBS) -- Cheryl Marino never knew what hit her New Year's morning as she was getting ready to leave her Lynn home for a cup of coffee.

A stray bullet was fired from the street right through her living room window. It hit a pillow on the couch and then struck her in the chest just as she was reaching for her pocketbook.

"I picked up my shirt, and I looked underneath, and it was all red," she said.

The bullet passed through, lodging in her back.

"If it had been an inch closer I would have been dead. It was an inch from my heart," she said.

Marino became a statistic that morning, the first shooting of the New Year in the city of Lynn.

WBZ-TV's Beth Germano reports.

In a state of shock she called 9-1-1 herself already beginning to feel weak.

"I just got shot with something," she told the dispatcher. "Hurry, please, I can't breathe."

It wasn't until she came home from the hospital 10 days later that she saw the bullet hole in the window. She only remembers hearing an argument on the sidewalk, but never heard the window glass shatter as the bullet pierced it.

Lynn police have yet to make an arrest, saying it remains an open case. But she wants to know who would be so careless in the neighborhood and with her life.

"I'm angry the person got away with it, and that's not right," she said.

She's known in the neighborhood for helping stray animals, and can't believe she could be in the wrong place at the wrong time in her own home.

Two months later she is still healing, and knows how close she came. "Very fortunate, very fortunate. I wasn't ready to die, definitely not ready to die."

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