Bullets

In January 1957, Dr. John B. Flick Jr. cut out of the heart of a 9-year-old girl a bullet that had been lodged there for 17 days. "Doctors said every time her heart beat, the bullet pushed against the wall of the heart," the Evening Bulletin reported. "In time, they said, it would have worn a hole in the muscle. " Thanks to Dr. Flick, the spent bullet became a belated Christmas present for the girl. "He followed up on her a couple of years later, and she was doing fine," Dr. Flick's daughter, Louise, said in an interview.

Former St. Joseph's standout Pat Carroll (Hatboro-Horsham) will be inducted into the school's Basketball Hall of Fame on April 13. The 2011-12 Hawks will also be honored that evening. Carroll, who starred for the Hawks from 2001 to 2005, is remembered as one of the finest perimeter shooters in St. Joseph's history. He holds the school career records for three-pointers (294), three-point percentage (44.5), and three-point attempts (661). He was the 2004-05 Atlantic Ten co-player of the year, an AP honorable-mention all-American, and the most outstanding player in the A-10 championship and the Big Five.

QAA, Lebanon - Syria accepted a cease-fire drawn up by U.N. envoy Kofi Annan on Tuesday, but the diplomatic breakthrough was swiftly overshadowed by intense clashes between government soldiers and rebels that sent bullets flying into Lebanon. Opposition members accuse President Bashar al-Assad of agreeing to the plan to stall for time as his troops make a renewed push to kill off bastions of dissent. And the conflict just keeps getting deadlier: The United Nations said the death toll has grown to more than 9,000.

At about 8:30 p.m. on Sept. 28, the bullets were flying so fast in South Philadelphia that some people seemed to find it hard to see the legal line between self-defense and slaughter. On Tuesday, in the calm of a courtroom protected by bulletproof glass, a Philadelphia judge ruled that Rahmik Beckett should be tried on the latter in the death of 24-year-old Kevin Jones in what the prosecutor called "nothing short of an execution. " After the preliminary hearing before Municipal Court Judge Teresa Carr Deni, defense attorney Lawrence S. Krasner maintained that Beckett, 23, fired on Jones in self-defense.

Updated at 8:15 a.m. Tuesday. A JOYRIDE through North Philadelphia on what police said was a stolen four-wheeler turned deadly for two teenage boys last night, when they were mowed down in a hail of gunfire from an AK-47 assault rifle on a narrow block in the city's Fairhill section. Cops said the boys. who lived in the neighborhood, were riding an all-terrain vehicle stolen from upstate Pennsylvania on 9th Street near Cambria when automatic-weapon gunfire erupted just before 8 p.m. The victims were identified this morning as Dexter Bowie, 17, of the 3000 block of North 8th Street, and Johnathan Stokley, 18, of the 3100 block of Darien Street.

A NOISE in the night awoke Sherrell Rhine-Paul from her sleep early yesterday and put her in the middle of a living nightmare inside her Strawberry Mansion home, police said. By the end of it her husband was dead, and her body was ravaged by up to 10 bullets. About 3:45 a.m., two men entered the house, on Cecil B. Moore Avenue near 32nd Street, that Rhine-Paul, 39, shared with her husband, John Paul Jr., 35, and their two young children, police said. Homicide Capt.

As an orthopedic trauma surgeon at Temple University Hospital, Saqib Rehman sees gunshot injuries almost daily. The problem is what he can't see. With the growing use of hollow-point bullets that expand inside the victim, entrance and exit wounds are no longer a reliable indicator of internal damage. "It requires more careful evaluation of the wounds to make sure the patient doesn't require urgent surgery," Rehman said. For the average person - perhaps even the average gun owner - the idea that handguns can cause dire wounds is about as surprising as a murder on Law & Order . But in medicine, gun injuries were assumed to fall into two categories.

A 58-year-old woman was struck in the face by a stray bullet while in bed in her home in the city's East Germantown section Friday afternoon, police said. Shortly before 3 p.m. in the 5800 block of Morton Street, a bullet struck her second-floor bedroom window, pierced her chin, and lodged near her spine, said Lt. George McClay of the Northwest Detective Division. About a block away, two armed men had opened fire on a silver Nissan, McClay said. One of the 13 bullets intended for the driver instead hit the sleeping woman.

A 58-year-old woman was shot in the face by a stray bullet while laying in bed inside her home in the city's East Germantown section Friday afternoon, police said. Shortly before 3 p.m. in the 5800 block of Morton Street, a bullet struck her second-floor bedroom window, pierced her chin and lodged near her spine, said Lt. George McClay of Northwest Detectives. About a block away, two armed males had opened fire on a silver Nissan on traveling on Morton Street, McClay said.