Woman avoids serious injury in Brooklyn shooting when bullet lodges in bra strap

A woman wounded when gunfire erupted during a block party Saturday night in New York City was spared from further injury because of her bra strap.

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One person was killed and 11 others were injured at an Old Timers Day party at a park in the Brownsville section of Brooklyn. Daniesa Murdaugh could have suffered a more injury but said a bullet lodged into her bra strap, preventing it from penetrating her spine, WPIX reported.

"My bra strap, thank God it was there, because it was thick enough to save it because if it wasn't there it would have went deeper than it was," Murdaugh, 21, told the television station.

About 2,000 people were in the area for the annual event, WCBS reported. The party was ending when the shooting occurred, the television station reported.

Murdaugh was one of seven men and five women between the ages of 21 and 55 who were shot, WPIX reported. A 38-year-old man died from a bullet wound to the head, the television station reported.

Murdaugh told WCBS she was dancing with friends when the incident occurred.

“When we turned around to run I heard two shots go off and I was hit in my back,” Murdaugh told the television station. “I was on the floor panicking. I couldn’t breathe. Everyone was surrounding me. My heart was racing. I was feeling faint. I couldn’t stand up.”

Murdaugh was released from an area hospital Sunday.

"It stings and it's sore and I can't put any type of pressure on my left side," Murdaugh told WPIX.

“I believe God covered my baby," Murdaugh's mother, Odessa Watson, told the television station. "When EMS had cut her bra strap off, the bullet was just sitting on her bra strap."

New York Mayor Bill de Blasio said in a news conference said Saturday night's shooting "does not define Brownsville."

"(It) does not define the people of Brownsville and does not define what's happening on the ground in a community that has worked so hard and come so far," de Blasio said.

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