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9-year-old shooting victim speaks out

Posted at 10:27 PM, Nov 25, 2018
and last updated 2018-11-26 08:31:33-05

A 9-year-old girl is speaking out after she and her 15-year-old brother were shot multiple times inside a home in North Las Vegas.

“I'm just lucky," says Makenzie.

It's the word she uses most to describe being shot multiple times and still having the chance to live to see another day.

"I was screaming and I felt the pain," says Makenzie, as she recalls the night it all happened.

“The bullet hit me right here, and it came out my mouth so when it hit me, I was facing that way and I turned my head."

Before bullets went flying through the front door of the home near Decatur and Cheyenne Avenue, Makenzie says she was up waiting for her dad to come home when she heard the doorbell ring.

She ran to the door thinking it was him.

“After I opened it, it looked like someone else and I was like that’s not my dad.”

Home surveillance video captured the moments the shooters fired into the home around 2 a.m.

RELATED: North Las Vegas police: 2 children hurt in shooting, searching for gunman

Makenzie and her 15-year-old brother were both inside caught in the crossfire.

Makenzie was shot a total of three times.

She was in the Intensive Care Unit at UMC in the days following awaiting surgery.

While she was recovering, she says her mind was selflessly only focused on her family.

“I was worrying about my brother mostly and I was wanting my dad because he said nothing would happen to me as long as I was with them”

Her family says her survival is nothing short of a miracle.

As the shooters remain on the run, Makenzie says she just wants to know why someone would risk taking her life or her brother's away.

“I would say you know you shot a nine-year-old, why would you even do it, you know there’s consequences, and I’m sure he knows what they are.”

LINK: GoFundMe for Makenzie