DeLand woman realizes she was shot days after incident

Heather Charlebois showed us the wound and bruise on her right thigh. What she thought was a firework hitting her leg on the 4th of July turned out to be a 38-caliber bullet.

She said, "Suddenly it felt like something blew up in my lap".

You can see in this surveillance video, Charlebois was sitting with her boyfriend watching a band at Cafe Da Vinci in DeLand with some friends at around 10:30 Saturday night. She said, "We heard a loud pop and I felt pain in my leg, so we all assumed it was a fire cracker. We never figured it was a gun shot." In the video, you can see the blood stain on her jeans as she walked away from the table.

For the next four days she was in pain. Finally, her friends convinced her to have it checked out, so she went to the hospital. She said, "Yesterday everyone was telling me it looked like a bullet hole so they wanted me to go to the hospital, so I did." A surgeon told her it's very close to an artery, so the bullet will stay put.

Police believe someone was firing their gun into the air during fireworks somewhere outside the restaurant and one of the bullets it Charlebois.
They and Charlebois would like to know who fired that gun.
She said, "I'm all for firearms, you know. I'm not anti-gun, but I'm anti 'idiot carrying a gun!'"

The DeLand Police Department Criminal Investigations Unit is investigating and working to identify the source of the gunshot.  Anyone that may have seen or heard anything that could be related to this incident should contact Detective C. Jusick at 386-626-7424 or call Crime Stoppers at 1-888-277-8477. You may remain anonymous.