Texas state representative survives being shot by stray bullet

A stray bullet narrowly missed piercing the brain of a Texas state representative celebrating New Year's Eve.

Shortly after midnight, Armando Martinez, a Democrat representing District 39, was outside a friend's house in Weslaco, Texas, preparing to set off a few fireworks with other partygoers. His wife gave him a kiss to ring in the new year, and as she pulled away, the bullet entered the back of his head. "I felt like I got hit by a sledgehammer," he told NBC Latino Monday. His wife saw there was a hole in his head, and they concluded he had been shot; after a 45-minute procedure at a local hospital, a .223 caliber bullet was removed from his head.

"I was extremely lucky," Martinez said. "My surgeons said if it went a couple more millimeters deep, I may not have been able to have this conversation right now." Throughout the night, the seven-term representative heard celebratory gunshots go off, and he hopes this is a wakeup call to the dangers of firing guns in the air. The Hidalgo County Sheriff's Office is trying to find where the bullet came from; it's possible it could have come from someone firing a gun into the air two blocks away. Martinez is grateful that his wife and the children at the party are safe. "I do believe there is a silver lining that nobody else got seriously hurt," he said.

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Catherine Garcia has worked as a senior writer at The Week since 2014. Her writing and reporting have appeared in Entertainment Weekly, The New York Times, Wirecutter, NBC News and "The Book of Jezebel," among others. She's a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.