FORT MYERS, FL (WBBH/CNN) - Police have arrested a mother after her 4-year-old daughter’s gunshot wound was left untreated for nine days.
“She wasn’t even limping, She couldn’t walk,” said Mary Jackson,grandmother of Shania Cody, 4. Shania's mother, Shanquisha Upshaw, hid the child’s injuries.
Jackson said her son and Shania’s father, Stefan Cody, finally convinced Upshaw to drop her daughter off at their house when it became clear Shania was seriously injured. Jackson rushed Shania to Lee Memorial Hospital, where doctors determined she needed surgery immediately.
“They said if I would’ve waited a little more longer, they would’ve had to cut her whole little leg off,” Jackson said, adding that the wound had become infected.
Now, Shania has to wear a cast for a month as her leg heals. Her family says there is more to the story than what investigators have released so far.
“She is not a bad mama,” Jackson said of Upshaw. “Shanquisha stayed in the house with me for five or six years, of and on. It’s just that some of the friends and the people she hangs with is not good people.”
The state’s attorney’s office has taken over the case. Upshaw bonded out of jail and refused to comment.
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