Brookfield police continue to investigate just how a 21-year-old North Riverside woman suffered a gunshot wound to her right hip during the early morning hours of Nov. 19.

As of Monday afternoon, police were still unclear exactly where the incident happened. What’s certain is that the woman was shot in the right hip and was taken by two friends to the emergency room at Loyola University Medical Center just before 3 a.m. on Monday morning.

The woman was not seriously injured and was released from the hospital on Monday, according to Brookfield police Lt. Edward Petrak.

Police were notified of the incident when they received a call from the hospital. A staff member told police a “highly intoxicated” woman said she was shot while walking “somewhere in Brookfield.” The woman’s blood-alcohol level was reportedly .204, which is nearly three times the legal limit for operating a motor vehicle.

Hospital staff told police that the woman initially told them she was possibly at Eight Corners or near Maple Avenue and 31st Street when she “heard fireworks” before feeling pain in her leg.

At the hospital, the woman told a police officer that she had left her house in North Riverside about 12:30 a.m. after an argument with her mother and that she walked to the Eight Corners area in Brookfield.

She told police she stayed in that area for about an hour before walking back home. The woman said she was walking eastbound on the south side of 31st Street between Golfview and First Avenue, which is in Riverside, when a car passed her.

“The next thing she remembers is falling to the ground,” states the police report. The woman reportedly told police that she continued on First Avenue, where she was picked up by two friends, who took her to the hospital.

Police also reported, however, that the two friends indicated that they picked up the shooting victim on 31st Street while she was walking westbound between Prairie and Maple Avenues, and that her wound would have been on the other hip had she been walking eastbound.

The victim reportedly continued to insist that her friends’ version of the story was wrong and allegedly became uncooperative with police.

“We’re unsure where it happened,” said Petrak. “We’re still investigating.”