A stray bullet hits a Lebanon, Va., woman, lodging in her jaw

By: Claire Galofaro | TriCities.com
Published: November 19, 2009

LEBANON, Va. – A stray bullet that smashed through a Russell County woman’s bedroom window and into her face was one inch shy of hitting her brain, police said.
Instead, the bullet shot through the left side her nose, under her eye and down into her right jaw.
Authorities said a 9-year-old neighbor boy, on the back of his dad’s tractor 150 yards away, accidently pulled the trigger.
Virginia Matney, 73, was air-lifted to Johnson City Medical Center after the incident Sunday night. She was released Tuesday with a badly bruised face and the bullet still lodged in her jaw.
Matney said she was in her room getting ready for bed at 8:45 p.m. when she bent down slightly and, out of nowhere, the bullet came tearing through her nose. She never heard a sound.
“I screamed for my husband,” she said. “Blood was going everywhere. I told him, ‘Something hit me right here on the jaw.’ ”
Joehene “Edison” Matney came running. “I heard Virginia screaming,” he said. “Blood was flying out of her nose, out of her mouth. She was just screaming.”
The couple had just returned home from church and Edison Matney, who thought someone must have broken into the house, began searching the other rooms for the burglar. Then they noticed glass on the top of the dresser, lifted the shades and saw the bullet hole in the window.
Virginia Matney has lived in her home, six miles out of Lebanon on River Mountain Road, for almost 50 years. She used to baby sit the young boy that lives on the farm next door.
Russell County Chief Deputy Bill Watson said the boy was sitting on the back of a tractor his father was driving, with a loaded .22-caliber rifle in his hands, when the gun accidently discharged.
“It’s like handling a snake. If you’re not really, really careful, eventually it’s going to bite you,” Watson said of accidental discharges. “It’s hard enough for an adult to handle a gun. It’s a mechanical instrument, anything can go wrong. But, when you put that gun in a kid’s hands, it’s just not a good thing.”
Watson said the bullet from a .22-caliber rifle, a small caliber weapon, can travel a mile and a half. “A lot of people forget that a bullet don’t have eyes, it goes until the velocity ends, until it runs out of steam,” he said.
No charges will be filed. Investigators presented the evidence to Russell County Commonwealth’s Attorney Brian K. Patton, who declined to prosecute. Patton did not immediately return a late afternoon phone call.
But the Matneys aren’t convinced of the story. They suspect it might have been an after-dark attempt to shoot a deer, and said they haven’t even gotten an apology from the neighbors.
“I’m not angry at the little boy,” said Virginia Matney’s stepson Mark Matney. “He’s a sweet youngin’. My point is, why’s a 9-year-old got a gun in his hands after dark? And on Sunday, of all days.”
Matney’s doctors are waiting until the swelling goes down to perform surgery to remove the bullet sometime next week. She said her vision’s blurry and, for now, all she can eat is soup.
But Watson said she’s lucky.
“Thank God almighty that she is still alive,” he said. “It’s a stupid ordeal to have to go through.”
cgalofaro@bristolnews.com | (276) 645-2531

A stray bullet hits a Lebanon, Va., woman, lodging in her jaw

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