JACKSONVILLE, Fla. \u2014 The aunt of a Mandarin teenager recovering from a gunshot wound to the head is asking questions about what led to the shooting.<\/p>\n
Mary Ganaway says her nephew, 17-year-old Mikah Howell, has been recovering at Memorial Hospital after a friend shot him in the head.<\/p>\n
>>> STREAM ACTION NEWS JAX LIVE <<<<\/a><\/p>\n The incident happened the night of June 6 off of Inwood Terrance during a get-together at a friend\u2019s house.<\/p>\n At the time, the Jacksonville Sheriff\u2019s Office said it was investigating the shooting as an accident.<\/p>\n \u201cWe all have so many questions. We all want to know, and until Micah can tell us, that\u2019s as far as we can go,\u201d Ganaway said. \u201cIf he says it was an accident, then I\u2019m comfortable moving on with that, but I need to hear that from him; I believe his family needs to hear that from him.\u201d<\/p>\n Howell has been fighting to recover ever since.<\/p>\n [DOWNLOAD: Free Action News Jax app for alerts as news breaks<\/a>]<\/p>\n \u201cThey had to leave the bullet inside, and they have a plate holding it in place,\u201d Ganaway said. \u201cHe has been without a skull.\u201d<\/p>\n Howell\u2019s mother, Jessica McPhee, says doctors had to remove Howell\u2019s skull after the shooting due to intense swelling caused by the bullet. He had surgery on Tuesday to put back the left side of his skull, and now they\u2019re waiting to put back the right side.<\/p>\n But Ganaway says despite all of the obstacles, Howell\u2019s recovery is nothing short of a miracle.<\/p>\n \u201cHe\u2019s speaking, he remembers people, he\u2019s eating, he\u2019s smiling,\u201d Ganaway said. \u201cI do believe in him; with what he\u2019s done already, I believe he\u2019s going to have a full recovery.\u201d<\/p>\n [SIGN UP: Action News Jax Daily Headlines Newsletter<\/a>] <\/p>\n Action News Jax reached out to JSO for an update on the case but has not yet received a response. McPhee says the investigation is still open, but no arrests have been made.<\/p>\n To donate to the family\u2019s GoFundMe, click here<\/a>.<\/p>\n Click here<\/a> to download the free Action News Jax news and weather apps, click here<\/a> to download the Action News Jax Now app for your smart TV and click here<\/a> to stream Action News Jax live.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"JACKSONVILLE, Fla. \u2014 The aunt of a Mandarin teenager recovering from a gunshot wound to the head is…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":355952,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[982,88568,145267,1136,5078,145264,127313,969,116,118,117,63703,145266,634,145265,127311,127310],"class_list":["post-356448","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-jacksonville","tag-action_news","tag-casey_stone","tag-gnaway","tag-gofundme","tag-hospital","tag-howell","tag-inwood_terrace","tag-jack","tag-jacksonville","tag-jacksonville-headlines","tag-jacksonville-news","tag-jason","tag-jessica_mcphee","tag-local","tag-mary_gaway","tag-micah","tag-micah_howell"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/356448","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=356448"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/356448\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/355952"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=356448"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=356448"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=356448"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}