She was celebrating Carnival when gunmen fired on her car.
The YouTube star who shocked fans when she revealed she was shot while on vacation in Brazil has spoken out about the horrifying ordeal that has left a bullet in her body.
Read: Drug Kingpin 'El Chapo' Wants Out of Solitary Confinement, Complains of Being Cold and Alone
Jo Franco, 24, who travels the world with her friend, Damon Dominique, for their popular YouTube show "Shut Up and Go," says she was shot while they were celebrating Carnival.
"There were two motorcycles blocking the street and a man with a gun directly pointing inside the car," she told Inside Edition.
She was shot in the back, and X-rays show a bullet was lodged near her spine.
“I feel something warm hit my back,” she said. “I just put my hand on my back and it was like that traumatizing moment when you look at your hand and see your own blood seeping out of you.”
She said she didn’t think she was going to die but rather was “thinking I am going to survive.”
Dominique was in shock as Franco was rushed the hospital.
But as she predicted, she would miraculously recover from the bullet wound.
"The bullet went directly in the only spot probably in the back where it would affect nothing vital," Franco said.
Franco was released from the hospital just 14 hours later and was walking on her own. She spent an additional five days in Rio to recover before heading back to Los Angeles. Surprisingly, she still had the bullet in her back.
"It’s very close to my spine," she said. “It's too much risk to remove a bullet from the spinal area.”
Read: Sheriff's Deputies Heroically Save Jet Skiers in the Path of Cruise Ship in the Nick of Time
She calls herself lucky because she just happened to be leaning forward right when she was shot.
“I looked at the left where I should have been shooting and there was a gaping hole where the first bullet entered the car,” Franco said. “Had I been sitting in that seat, I would not be here right now.”
She added: “I couldn’t express to you the fortune, how lucky I was. You don't hear of many cases where people are shot in the back and can walk."
