Rocky Mount teen hit by bullet: 'I think I've been shot'

The student, who did not want WRAL News to use his name, was warming up for a scrimmage. He said he remembered hearing a distant popping noise and then felt pain in his neck.

"All of a sudden I got hit, my neck wobbled, and then my eyes went black, and I couldn't breathe for about 10 seconds," the teen said.

He said he did not know what happened until about 30 minutes later.

"I was numb. I couldn't feel anything. It was unreal," he said.

His mother said that, when her son called, she went into "panic mode."

"He called me on the phone and said, 'Mom, I think I've been shot,'" she said. "I was in panic mode. I have to get to my child - that's all I could think about."

When she first took him to UNC Nash Hospital, they were told the bullet only grazed his neck. They went home and ate dinner, but then the teen started feeling sick.

They went back to the hospital, where doctors took X-rays and saw the bullet was in his neck. He was flown to Vidant Medical Center in Greenville.

"The bullet missed everything important. I'm in shock. If it had been an inch to the right, he wouldn't be standing here," the teen’s mother said.

The family says everyone at school is keeping them in their thoughts.

"It is important to note that this was not, and I repeat, this was not an incident of school shooting, and neither was our student targeted," Rocky Mount High Principal Daniel Colvin said in a message to the school community.

Colvin said it is not clear what happened, but that someone might have been hunting in the woods behind the school.

He said it is likely a case of the student "being in the wrong place at the wrong time."

No disturbances or altercations were reported at the school before or around the time of the shooting.

Anyone with information should call police at 252-972-1411.