BELMONT, N.C. — A man says he was shot three times blocking bullets that could have hurt his wife and daughter.
Scottie Green and his family came from Florida to help a relative who’s had open heart surgery. They were staying at a Belmont motel when police say they had words with a couple next door and a man fired at least 15 shots into their room.
“Got one in the forearm, one in the chest,” Green said as he showed Channel 9′s Ken Lemon the bullet wounds on his body.
“If that bullet wouldn’t have grazed me in the chest, I’d be dead right now,” he said.
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The Greens are heading back home to Florida on Thursday. They say until then, they can’t afford to go anywhere else, but they refuse to go back to the motel.
Green and his wife Ashley say that early Saturday they heard loud arguing in the room next to theirs at Belmont’s Heritage Inn Motel.
They said they exchanged words with those guests through the walls and then heard a threat.
“The man said, ‘I’ll kill you,’ and then shots just rang out everywhere,” Ashley Green said.
They have photos of the bullet holes.
“It was bam, bam, bam, bam, bam,” Ashley Green said.
Scottie Green says God was with him that morning. “Luckily, one of them didn’t kill me,” he said.
“I’m constantly like, you know, I just can’t keep my mind off of it,” Ashley Green said.
They say their daughter is traumatized. “She has nightmares. She hardly eats,” Ashley Green said. “The sooner we get out of here the better.”
She said they are trying to find help to get a good place to stay Wednesday night.
The couple said they’ll find a way to return to Gaston County for every major court hearing in this case.
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