An Old West reenactment got a little too real for a Twin Cities grandma who took a shot of hot lead in her leg.

"The last gun battle was just concluding, and the next thing I knew there was blood spewing out of my leg," said Carrol Knutson, 65, of Birchwood, near White Bear Lake. She was watching Friday's staged shootout in Hill City, S.D., with her husband, Don, and their 13-year-old grandson, Jake.

"It was extremely painful," Knutson said. "Worse than anything I can imagine," even the three times she gave birth. "At least then there was a good outcome."

The shootout -- in which blanks are supposed to be used -- was one of many choreographed by volunteer cowboys from the Dakota Wild Bunch Reinactors as a regular summer attraction and as a fundraiser for the Children's Miracle Network.

The Pennington County Sheriff's Office is investigating how the fake gun battle went awry. "Blank ammo just goes bang. There shouldn't be any injury," said Pennington County Sheriff Lt. Marty Graves. But Knutson's injury, along with those of two other tourists, "is consistent with a bullet-type injury," he said.

When deputies arrived on the scene, they found casings only from blank ammunition and none from live ammo, Graves said. Doctors didn't recover any bullets from the victims because they were "through and through injuries," he said. "There are a bunch of theories and we're just going to have to work through this thing."

Among the possible causes of the accidental shootings: live ammo was shot, a blank shot out a projectile that was unknowingly lodged in the barrel or the gun malfunctioned.

"It's a horrible situation and we hope to get to the bottom of it," Graves said. "We're not ruling anything out."

Knutson said police and the doctor told her "there was no doubt in their mind that it was a bullet" that hit her. "They think it was a .45-caliber," she said. "There was lead residue, which indicates it was a bullet."

Jose Pruneda, 52, of Alliance, Neb., and John Ellis, 48 of South Connelsville, Pa., also were injured.

"I got shot in the forearm, and it went through the other side of my elbow," Ellis told the Rapid City Journal. "I had surgery around midnight Friday to remove bone and lead fragments."

The Dakota Bunch said on its Facebook page that it was holding off on any further reenactments but otherwise would have nothing to say about the incident.

Knutson tallied up the damage: a shattered fibula that will require six to eight weeks to recover, thousands of dollars in medical expenses and an early return from their westward vacation, which would have included a stop in Yellowstone and a whitewater rafting excursion.

"My summer is shot," she said.

pwalsh@startribune.com • 612-673-4482 mlsmith@startribune.com • 612-673-4788