An eight-month-old boy was shot in the face by a crossbow arrow just steps away from his home in south-east China.
The arrowhead became stuck in his cheek after his horrified grandmother broke the arrow while trying to pull it out from the boy’s face.
Doctors removed the arrowhead from the boy’s oral cavity after a 30-minute operation.
The eight-month-old boy had a 1.6-inch-long arrowhead lodged in his right cheek
A CT scan showed the arrowhead had entered the boy’s head near his right ear
According to Jiangxi Metropolitan Daily, the boy was shot in Fengcheng, Jiangxi Province, on the evening of September 26.
His grandmother, Li Xiantao, heard the baby crying while carrying him.
To her surprise, she noticed there was an arrow lodged in the infant’s face and she quickly pulled it out.
However, the action left the baby bleeding. The arrow also broke into two parts.
Doctors from The First Affiliated Hospital of Nanchang University carried out a computerised tomography (CT) scan on the boy.
They found a four-centimetre-long (1.57 inches) metal arrowhead stuck in his cheek.
The boy’s grandmother broke the arrow in two parts. She pulled out the shaft (left) and left the arrowhead stuck in his cheek (right)
Doctors performed a 30-minute operation and successfully removed the object from the baby
‘The arrowhead entered his head in front of his right ear and got lodged near his mouth,’ said Dr Yan Junfeng.
The baby underwent a 30-minute surgical operation to have the arrowhead removed from his mouth.
He had to stay in the hospital for seven days for further observation.
Recalling the incident, the baby’s grandmother suspected the arrow was shot by one of the neighbours living in the flat above them.
‘There was a man waiting by the window upstairs and the arrow was shot from above.
‘I looked up as soon as my grandson got shot, but the man walked away,’ she said.
Liu Wenlong, the boy’s father, guessed it could be a ‘revenge attack’.
‘They had argued with either my mother or my father before. That’s it,’ Liu cried.
The incident has been reported to the local police, who are carrying out further investigation.