GRANTSVILLE, Utah -- A Grantsville woman was almost killed after getting hit by a stray bullet while watching fireworks at a Pioneer Day party Friday night.
Linda Stroebel, 45, was sitting in a friend's backyard on Christley Street when the bullet entered her neck, brushed past her aorta and parked itself in her left lung.
"If it would have just hit close to my heart, close to my heart, I would have been dead instantly: I'm lucky that I'm alive," said Stroebel, who was released from the hospital Tuesday night.
Linda's husband, Rich, was sitting just a few feet away from Linda when she was hit.
"It looked like she was having trouble gasping and that sort of thing, trying to breathe like she had been socked in the stomach so to speak," Rich Stroebel said. "I then got up out of my chair and went over and saw on the edge of her collar she had some blood, and I pulled back her collar and saw she had blood on the side of her neck."
No one at the party had any idea Linda was shot, until paramedics and police arrived and relayed the unusual news.
"I honestly didn't believe them," Linda Stroebel said. "Even now it's kind of hard to understand, that I was hit with a bullet, you know, it's just not something that normally happens."
Police say it appears the weapon used was an AR-15 style rifle. They say as many has six rounds may have been fired into the sky, possibly from as far as a half a mile away.
"We got some calls that tracers were being shot from the north end of the city up and over to the center or southwest part of the city," said Grantsville Police Chief Kevin Turner.
Police are actively searching for the suspect or suspects, while Linda is hoping they have the guts to turn themselves in.
"You know, come forward, face your consequences; everybody makes mistakes," Linda Stroebel said. "But, you know, fess up. Hopefully you'll learn something from it, other people will learn from it, so nothing else happens like this again."
Grantsville police are asking for the public's help in this case. They are offering a $1,000 reward for anyone who has any information that could lead to an arrest.
