Second woman says she was hit by bullet on New Year's

<p>A second woman has come forward saying she was injured by a stray bullet during New Year's celebrations.</p><p>Aimee Buff, 27, was celebrating with her fiance at Underground Atlanta's Peach Drop when she was hit by a bullet that went through her left ear and lodged in her neck.</p><p>The incident happened just a few blocks from the Georgia Dome, where another woman, Merritt Tidwell, was hit in the leg by a bullet that fell through the roof of the dome.</p><p>Buff, a Delta Air Lines ticket agent from Hampton, and her fiance, Jason Muniz, were standing on a ledge facing the tower. It was a minute after midnight. The peach had descended and fireworks lit up the sky.</p><p>"I hadn't even gotten my kiss yet when I felt this horrible pain, (as though) someone had hit me on my left ear and neck with something very hard," Buff said.</p><p>Her shirt soaked in blood, Buff and her fiance jostled their way through the crowd to reach emergency personnel who bandaged her ear and sent her to Crawford Long Hospital.</p><p>She had been shot with a large-caliber handgun, police later said. The angle of the wound indicated the bullet had come from below where Buff was standing, police said.</p><p>The impact of the bullet had been absorbed by Buff's ear. It came to rest two inches from her spine, where it remains. Surgery is too risky, Buff was told. She spent three days in the hospital. Doctors continue to monitor Buff to see if the bullet is moving.</p><p>An Atlanta city ordinance forbids firing a weapon without permission within city limits, but police say arrests are difficult during celebrations.</p><p>"If the fireworks are going off at the time someone discharges a weapon, you can't necessarily tell the difference," Atlanta police spokesman John Quigley said. "It's also unusual for officers deployed for crowd control to actually encounter someone discharging a weapon because they aren't going to do it where officers are present."</p><p>___</p><p>HASH(0x2866584)</p>