Woman shot in head offers officer cup of tea

Published on Saturday 18 April 2009 20:03

A MISSISSIPPI woman who was shot in the head not only survived, but also made herself tea and offered an astonished police officer something to drink.

Tammy Sexton, 47, remained in hospital yesterday, three days after being shot by her husband, who then killed himself.

A bullet struck her in the forehead, passed through her skull and exited through the back of her head, authorities said. She is expected to fully recover.

"There's no way she should be alive other than a miracle from God," said Sheriff Mike Byrd of Jackson County, Mississippi.

He said deputies had been looking for Sexton's husband Donald earlier in the week to give him a document ordering him to stay away from his wife.

He was put on probation for six months on April 9 for domestic violence. But he turned up at their home in rural Jackson County at 12.10am on Tuesday and confronted his wife as a relative ran next door to call police. "He shot her right in the head," Byrd said. "Then he went out on the back porch and shot himself."

A deputy was greeted by the woman when he arrived minutes after she was shot with a .380-calibre handgun. "She said, 'What's going on?' She was holding a rag on her head and talking. She was conscious, but she was confused about what had happened," Byrd said.

"She had made herself some tea and offered the officer something to drink."

Byrd said the bullet apparently passed through the lobes of her brain without causing major damage. She was rushed to hospital by a helicopter.

"You just don't hear of something like this. Somebody gets shot in the head and they're dead," he said.

While such cases may be rare, people have been shot in the head before with little or no lasting injury.

"There is a space in the brain where a missile could pass without doing any major damage. Is it possible? Yes. It would be rare," said neurosurgeon Dr Patrick Pritchard at the University of Alabama-Birmingham.