BUFFALO, Minn. -- "It all happened so fast," Sandy Holtze of Buffalo said. She was driving home on Highway 55 Wednesday night when she heard a loud bang. A really loud bang.
"That sounded like a gun, and I pulled to the side of the road and I called 911. I wasn't sure what happened, I said something happened. It sounded like a gun, then I looked down and saw the blood all over my seat and my leg," Holtze recalled.
She'd been hit just above the knee; a bullet had passed through her driver's side door. "The bullet came out. It went in and came out. I have some shrapnel from my car door in there," she said pointing to her left leg.
Authorities rushed to the scene. "One of the officers observed some kids come up out of the corn and start running towards a residence," Lt. Todd Hoffman with the Wright County Sheriff's Department said.
Hoffman says investigators found a gun outside that home and a 19 year old man inside. They found a 17 year old in a nearby park and he showed investigators where he had hidden his rifle. "They admitted to shooting their guns but they said they had no idea they had struck a car," the Lt. said.
Both where taken into custody and could be charged with reckless discharge of a firearm causing injury on Friday. "At this point we have no reason to believe it was intentional," Hoffman said.
Both Holtze and Hoffman say there's a lesson to be learned from this close call. "Maybe it's a lesson to young kids to learn that you just can't be shooting randomly," Holtze said. "Got to remind people whether they're hunting or target practicing to make sure of their target awareness; where they're shooting at, what's down the range of where they're shooting," Hoffman added.
(Copyright 2009 by KARE. All Rights Reserved.)
