Woman Nearly Victim To One Of Seven Lynn Shootings Over Weekend

 LYNN (CBS) -- Lorraine Blowers DePietro was feeling lucky to be alive as she headed back home to Georgia Monday.

She picked a violent weekend to visit her family in Lynn.

"I was just millimeters away from injury, and inches away from death," she said.

Saturday, while driving to get something for her elderly mother, it hit. Then she saw the bullet hole in the window next to her head, and another in the seat cushion. Blowers DePietro had nearly been hit by a bullet.

"And I hear this weird thud sound, like a wet type of thud on the side of the car," she said. "Feeling white hot pain on my back, I really thought I'd been shot."

Despite her worst fears, the bullet never hit her. It was so close the heat from the bullet left a welt on her shoulder and a singed mark on her jacket, which she says may have saved her life.

It was one of more than a half dozen shooting incidents in Lynn over the weekend. 29-year-old Hanky Betancourt was shot to death in front of his home Friday. That was hours after another man survived gunshots in Austin Square. In the Highlands neighborhood, police found shotgun shells where residents heard them that same night. Then on Neptune Boulevard Saturday, two cars were shot.

Just after Depietro's close encounter with a stray bullet, a man down the street was shot in his stomach. Hours later, two teens were shot in their legs on Hanover Street.

Depietro believes her good fortune was not pure luck. She says her daughter Haley, who died five years ago, was watching from above, protecting her.

"I am blessed," she said. "I am truly blessed to be able to tell my story."

WBZ NewsRadio 1030's Bernice Corpuz reports