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Bullet removed from cancer survivor's body nearly 11 years after he was shot in Jacksonville

Anselmo Prince Jr. smiled when Anchor Tenikka Hughes asked him how he was doing.

"Feel much better," he said.

Hughes talked to Prince and his 86-year-old mother Catherine via Skype from their native home of  St. Croix, Virgin Islands.

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Prince was shot in April 2006 during a drive-by shooting on Oriely Drive in the Cedar Hills neighborhood of Jacksonville. Bullets pierced his arm and chest, one of them punctured his lung before lodging near his spine.

Prince's mother Catherine said, "The doctor said he cannot take it out. If he tried to take it out, he will (be) cripple in a wheelchair for the rest of his life."

Doctors made the choice to leave the bullet in his body. Prince, who was also battling a cancerous tumor at the time of the shooting, focused on his recovery.

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Then last month, he told his mother he noticed a lump on his back.

His mother inspected the lump and said, "It was hard, like a hard piece of rock."

She contacted a local surgeon. Last Friday, that doctor removed the bullet from Prince's back, nearly 11 years after it first entered his body. Prince remains healthy and cancer-free with no complications.

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His mother said, "My God is a miracle working God. I love Him and I just thank Him every second of the day. "

When that drive-by shooting happened in 2006, Prince was getting out of a car with his brother's family. Several shots were fired, but remarkably no one else was hurt.

The family told the Jacksonville Sheriff's Office the shooter was seen speeding away in a dark green car.