Unborn Child Survives After Mother is Shot in Head; Family Planning to Raise Premature Baby
Some are calling it a Christmas miracle. After a pregnant 17-year-old girl was shot in the back of the head on Christmas Day, her unborn child managed to survive and was born three months premature but is expected to make it.
Eva Casara was shot on Christmas Day; police later found her severely injured and lying in the snow between two homes in Dolton, Illinois. Doctors were able to keep her alive just long enough to deliver her premature baby via cesarean.
"She's fighting for her little life. She weighs only about a pound and a half," Eva's grandmother Fannie Casara told the Chicago Sun-Times. "They said they found her," she said of the police announcement. "They didn't know how long she had been laying there. They had shot her in the back of the head. Her purse was gone, her money was gone, her iPhone was gone… coat gone. They treated her like a dog and just shot her in the back of the head."
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The baby girl, named Lailani Paris Casara, is in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit. Her family is praying that she will survive her turbulent entrance into the world.
"She looks just like her mother. She's beautiful, and she's so tiny, all those tiny fingers and toes," Fannie told the Chicago Tribune.
The police are busy trying to figure out who could have committed such a heinous act.
"We're following up on a lot of leads," Police Chief John C. Franklin told the Sun Times. "The South Suburban Major Crimes Task Force are following up on the leads, talking to a lot of people who are potential witnesses. They're canvassing the area. We hope to have this terrible crime solved maybe within another day. There are a lot of loose ends but we know this crime is solvable."
As of now, no arrests have been made, but baby Lailani is apparently growing stronger.
