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May 21, 2008 5:54 pm US/Central
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Woman Shot In Womb While Pregnant, Baby Survives
ST. PAUL (WCCO) ―
A newborn boy who was shot while still inside his mother's womb appears to be making a remarkable recovery. From hospital bed where she is healing from bullet wounds, the boy's mother talked about the shooting for the first time.
Andrea Benjamin, 23, was 7-and-a-half months pregnant when someone shot her in the abdomen. Her baby, who was delivered by emergency C-section, was shot in the leg and buttocks.
"He's off the breathing thing; he's breathing on his own. He's okay," said Benjamin, who named her new baby boy Jayden Alikeys Malik Shepard.
On May 17, Benjamin and her boyfriend were shot inside their St. Paul apartment after answering the door.
"I'm laying there and I'm screaming to the dispatcher that I'd been shot and my water broke. My amniotic fluid started coming out of the bullet hole," said Benjamin.
The mother of three said the woman who shot her was an acquaintance of a family member.
"I want to know why she shot my house, through my door. I want to know why would she do that ... shoot a pregnant woman, shoot a house that's got babies in it. How could you do that? And you don't even know me," said Benjamin.
The bullet holes in the apartment wall and door can still be seen.
"The bullets went through here. Through the door, through the refrigerator and the baby was on the other side of the wall here," said Lisa Benjamin, Andrea's mother.
"Oh my God we found a bullet cleaning. It's a good size bullet and you to think that went through the baby's leg and her. It had to been the one that went through them," she said.
Benjamin's boyfriend was also shot and he's still recovering in the hospital. Meanwhile, police are still looking for the woman suspected of doing the shooting.
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