By Mark Wineka
mwineka@salisburypost.com
A domestic dispute in the Summer Place community of High Rock Lake left a man dead and a woman seriously wounded Thursday night.
The shootings occurred about 8:15 p.m. at 165 Leisure Lane, which is near Sportsman and Sapona drives off the Second Creek arm of High Rock Lake.
An argument between a husband and wife at the home left the husband dead at the scene from a shotgun wound.
A woman who apparently had brought the man to the address earlier in the evening also was shot. Wounded, she drove herself in a Ford Expedition to Tamarac Marina off Bringle Ferry Road, where someone called for help.
Emergency personnel said the 21-year-old woman had serious vascular, bone and nerve damage to her lower left arm and hand from a shotgun blast.
She was receiving blood on her way to Rowan Regional Medical Center but was stable and alert, reports said.
A medical helicopter transported her to another facility later in the evening.
“We’re making every effort to find out what happened,” Rowan County Sheriff George Wilhelm said Thursday from the scene.
Wilhelm would not release names of the victims, pending notification of next of kin.
Detectives and a crime scene unit from the Sheriff’s Office were conducting interviews, collecting evidence and trying to sort things out.
Wilhelm said it was his understanding that the wife had a 50-B protective order out against her husband.
“He was shot, and another person with him was shot,” Wilhelm said.
Investigators were trying to determine Thursday night whether the incident was justifiable self-defense, “or something else,” Wilhelm said.
He stopped short of saying his office had the wife in custody and reiterated that his officers were talking with several people.
Wilhelm said he would be consulting with the district attorney’s office to determine what would happen next.
A neighbor sitting on her porch heard arguments and screaming coming from the home followed by two shots. The neighbor then called 911.
“I was so scared I couldn’t remember my own address,” she said.