Chinese boy, 8, shoots, injures girl thinking gun was a toy

A girl from eastern China has undergone multiple operations to remove nearly 100 steel pellets from her body after she was shot by an eight-year-old boy playing with a scatter gun, according to a newspaper report.

Zhang Shuting, 11, faces the risk of partial paralysis as about a dozen steel balls are still lodged in her neck and nine in her right arm, the Anhui Business News reported.

She was injured in December outside a grocery store in Fuyang after a boy took a gun used to scatter birds and fired at her, thinking it was a toy, the article said.

Zhang suffers from dizziness and headache as the pellets have damaged her nervous system and needs another operation as soon as possible, doctors from Nanjing Children’s Hospital were quoted as saying.

The hospital is uncertain if all the pellets can be removed successfully, saying it was difficult as they are small and surrounded by growing body tissue.