Sadie Nicholls/FacebookA student was shot in the head with a type of air gun shortly after rejecting the advances of a group of men on a night out.
18-year-old Sadie Nicholls was out celebrating a friend’s 21st in Shoreditch, east London, earlier this month, when she and one pal left their group to go and get some food.
When they were alone, the group of six men approached the two girls and attempted to chat them up, calling them beautiful.
According to the MailOnline, Sadie recalled how she rejected their advances, saying:
This group of men and were trying to speak to us. They said ‘You are so beautiful’.
I just ignored them with my back to them. Then one put his jacket on me. I said ‘Get away from me, please leave us alone.’
The men reportedly found the girls’ reactions funny, and started laughing. A couple of minutes later, Sadie’s friend was hit in the arm by a pellet, and the 18-year-old was shot in the head.
She continued:
They found it funny and were laughing. About two minutes later a pellet hit my friends arm.
Her whole arm shook. Then one went in my head.
Speaking to the Maidenhead Advertiser, Sadie added:
I collapsed on the floor. Blood was just pouring from my face.
The student remembered the men running away before she blacked out. A member of the public called the ambulance, and Sadie was taken to the nearby Royal London Hospital, where she received stitches.
Although medical staff managed to remove most of the pellet which hit Sadie, there is still some metal in her head which would be too dangerous to remove.
She explained:
[The pellet] travelled through and was quite deep and shattered in my head. They got the majority of it out but there is still metal in my head.
They can’t go in and get it because it might do some damage. They said right now I won’t know if there is any long term damage.
Sadie believes the shot may have come from one of the men from the group who approached her, though she can’t say for certain. She described the men as being in their 40s or 50s and Eastern European.
The 18-year-old added:
I think they must have been cross with me because I wasn’t showing any interest.
She is reportedly having problems trying to sleep following the incident, and is using the experience to warn others. Sadie told the Maidenhead Advertiser:
[I feel] a bit all over the place but I am just relaxing. I know I will be absolutely fine because I deal with these things well.
I just want other people to be careful.
Metropolitan Police is investigating, but no arrests have been made.
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Emily Brown first began delivering important news stories aged just 13, when she launched her career with a paper round. She graduated with a BA Hons in English Language in the Media from Lancaster University, and went on to become a freelance writer and blogger. Emily contributed to The Sunday Times Travel Magazine and Student Problems before becoming a journalist at UNILAD, where she works on breaking news as well as longer form features.