A 65-year-old Bronx nursing aide was recovering in the hospital after being struck by a stray bullet during a triple shooting near University Avenue late Monday night, according to police and her daughter.
The woman, identified by her daughter as Cheryl, had been working at the Hope Center and was about an hour from finishing her shift when she stepped out to a deli to get some water shortly before 11 p.m.
She was leaving the store when gunfire erupted, according to police.
A 43-year-old man was struck in the head in the shooting. Cheryl was also hit, with the bullet entering her leg after passing through the man, her daughter, Christina Andries, said.
The injury left Cheryl with a broken bone, and the bullet became lodged in her leg. She underwent surgery to have it removed and was recovering at Lincoln Hospital.
For her daughter, the shooting was a frightening phone call she never expected to receive.
“When they called me and told me she got shot, I’m like, who would do such a thing?” Andries said.
Police said another victim, a 52-year-old woman, suffered a graze wound to the leg. She is expected to recover.
Investigators were working to determine what led to the shooting and who was responsible. No motive or suspect information was confirmed in the information available for this report.
Andries said her mother was not involved in whatever led to the gunfire and was simply trying to finish her workday.
“She’s innocent bystander, and she was just at the wrong place at the wrong time,” Andries said.
The shooting has left the family focused on Cheryl’s recovery while waiting for investigators to determine what happened outside the deli.
Andries said she was relieved after learning that her mother was stable and expected to be OK.
“They told me she was going to be fine, and she was stable. I was able to calm down,” she said.
For the family, however, the incident has changed what should have been an ordinary trip for water after work into a painful reminder of how quickly random gunfire can affect people who have nothing to do with the violence.
