Police and doctors hailed the survival of Tammy Sexton, 47, as miraculous after a bullet from a .38-calibre handgun struck her squarely in the forehead, passed through her skull and exited through the back of her head. She is expected to make a full recovery, while her husband shot himself dead after the attack on his wife.
But law enforcement officers in Jackson County, Mississippi, were also astonished that Mrs Sexton offered them tea when they arrived at her home after the shooting.
Sheriff Mike Byrd said: "When the officer got there she said, 'What's going on?' She was holding a rag on her head and talking. She was conscious, but she was confused about what had happened.
"She had made herself some tea and offered the officer something to drink.
"There's no way she should be alive other than a miracle from God. You just don't hear of something like this. Somebody gets shot in the head and they're dead."
He said that her husband had been on probation for domestic violence and officers had been seeking to serve him with a court order demanding he stayed away from his wife and their rural home.
He said the bullet apparently passed through the lobes of the woman's brain without causing major damage. She was rushed to hospital by helicopter where she has been monitored for three days.
Dr Patrick Pritchard, an assistant professor of surgery at the University of Alabama-Birmingham, said: "There is a space in the brain where a missile could pass without doing any major damage.
"Is it possible? Yes. It would be rare."
