"You could hear it. It went POW! And I fell over and that was when it hit my bone," he said.
Luke spent the weekend at the hospital recovering from a bullet that was just millimeters away from killing him. It was Saturday afternoon when he was hit in the leg by that stray bullet while walking down Nails Road just outside of Simonton. Detectives with the Fort Bend County Sheriff's Office are still working to determine where the bullet came from.
Luke's mother, Marisa Knight, says he is one courageous little boy, somehow caught in the crosshairs of a weapon he never even saw.
Clutching his stuffed monkey, surrounded by get well balloons, Luke remembers something no nine-year-old should. He was walking in a rural area of Fort Bend County near Simonton Saturday with his younger brother and great-grandfather -- a walk they've done many times before on family farm land. This time, though, Luke suddenly fell to the ground in excruciating pain.
"I thought that my bone was probably broke, and something was really wrong," he recalled.
Something was wrong, though they didn't know it yet. His mother says a bullet that appeared from out of nowhere pierced Luke's right leg.
"The bone was completely split in half. The bullet had gone thru one side of his leg," Knight said. "The bone was side by side and they knew it was near the artery."
Luke's seven-year-old brother ran nearly a mile to get help. The area is so rural it took the family more than half an hour to get Luke to the nearest emergency clinic. Only later did they find out how serious the wound was.
Knight explained, "It was on the artery. If it was a millimeter lower, it would have cut the artery. He would have bled to death."
Luke and his family say they saw no one else nearby at the time of the shooting. Detectives are still trying to figure out where the bullet came from.
"At this point we can't determine if the shot was intentional or accidental," said Captain James Burger with the Fort Bend County Sheriff's Office. "We still haven't ruled out either one."
Doctors spent six hours with Luke in surgery, removing the bullet. That alone was a dangerous endeavor. The family knows they are lucky Luke is still here.
Knight said, "I told him, 'You know to expect double the kisses now.' And he says, 'That's OK, Mom!'"
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