“I Didn’t Want My Sister to Die”: 11-Year-Old helps 8-Month-Old Sister Hurt by Gunfire

A typical Friday night turned into a mother’s worst nightmare when gunshots swirled around her neighborhood into the apartment complex where she stayed with her children and mother.

Some of those bullets flew into baby Jiya McMahan’s crib striking the 8-month old.

Jiya was sleeping in the playpen when she was hit by bullets in four different places. Her 11-year-old sister followed instructions to call 911 and put pressure on her wounds, likely saving the baby’s life.

“’I don’t want my sister to die, I don’t want my sister to die,’” FOX News Channel 8 reported that the daughter said. “Then when [the Police] came in she said, ‘Please save my sister,’ and passed her off and they took her and went straight to hospital.”

When Jiya’s mother, Jade Green, got home, she was met with a flood of emergency crews.

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“’I just want to inform you, your baby got hit,’” Green recalled the officer telling her. “And I fell to my knees and started crying.”

Little Jiya spent three nights in the hospital. Doctors said the bullet hit her tricep, went through her back and clipped her lung.

The family and community know that it’s a miracle that Jiya is still alive and doing well as if nothing happened.

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“They said they had to put in a chest tube in because the bullet did … go through and clipped her lungs. And they wanted to make sure she was OK,” Green said. “But she’s not on any monitors, she doesn’t have to get any surgeries, and I don’t think there’s going to be any future complications.”

Winston-Salem police told Green they believe those shots were intentionally fired into the home, though the theory is that they weren’t intended for the people inside. With the unfortunate reality that this type of gunfire exists around them, the family is looking to move. And thanks to a GoFundMe account and the community stepping up, they can.

The older 11-year-old sibling is being hailed as a hero and rightfully so. Many of us don’t know what to do when someone around us gets hit by gunfire. God forbid that ever happens, but here are some tips to be prepared to act if it ever does:

• 1. Look for the source of any blood, open or remove clothing if you have to.
• Life-threatening bleeding that requires care includes blood that’s pooling on the ground or spurting from a wound, loss or partial loss of a limb, or bleeding from someone who is unconscious.
• 2. Use your hands to apply direct pressure at the site of the wound to stop the bleeding.
• Then, cover the wound with a cloth (a shirt, a scarf, anything around), press down hard with both hands, and keep pressing. This is what helped little Jiya.
• 3. If the injury is particularly deep, pack the wound.
• You can use cloth or gauze to control the bleeding.
• 4. If the injury is on a limb, correctly apply a tourniquet to the injured limb to stop bleeding.
• If a trauma kit is available, pull a tourniquet tight around the person’s arm or leg above the wound. Be aware that this doesn’t mean that a person is going to need an amputation. If a tourniquet is on for under two hours, the limb will probably be fine.
• 5. Keep the victim calm until help arrives.
• Keep the victim and yourself calm and know that you’re not hurting the patient, you’re saving their life. Pressing on a wound or pulling a tourniquet tight will be painful for the person with the wound, but their discomfort doesn’t mean you’re doing it wrong.

If you’d also like to contribute to the family and help them move, please send anything you can here to their official GoFundMe page.