"BULLET" - NF

The following is written by my husband, Beau.

When I originally wrote in my wife’s blog about this event, I was still not mentally there enough to describe everything. I am sure I have severe PTSD about this, as I think about it almost nightly. I’ve wanted to write this out for a long time to share with everyone, but also as a form of therapy for myself, and hopefully to show my wife some appreciation for the trauma she also endured. It is still just a brief look into what’s been going on from 271 days ago. It feels like an eternity, but really hasn't been that long.

The title, “Bullet,” is fitting for several reasons for this post, and I know I am reusing it. This particular song is in so many ways my wife and my song, but it also applies to many of you reading this. Listen to the lyrics. You will know which ones apply to you.

THE INCIDENT: I will try to be as detailed as I can.

On August 16th, 2024 at approximately 8:45 in the morning, I was finishing breakfast with my 4 month old son, my 1.5 year old son, and my wife. I looked out of the window in our breakfast sunroom, and saw that our pool had an algae bloom. I am obsessive about the pool, so I decided to go to the pool supply store and have the water tested and get advice about the steps I needed to take to restore it. I walked to the garage, pulled my 2003 Z06 Corvette out, and let it idle in the driveway to warm up the engine. I walked back inside to let my wife know what I was going to do, and walked to the kitchen bar where my handgun was laying. I unholstered the weapon, checked the chamber (it was hot), and then checked the magazine. This weapon had never been fired after I loaded and chambered it, so checking was unnecessary to be confident it was still loaded, but it is part of my safety routine. I placed the weapon back in the holster, and began to slide it into my waistband. Ironically, on this particular day, I had the thought to myself, “this is a stupid way to carry a gun. I should be open carrying. This is pointed right at my (*genitals*.) I do not always carry. I had started consistently after a few road rage incidents where I was unarmed and had my son in the car. I made a promise to my wife that I would always make it home, and always be in a position to protect our child(ren). On this day, I wasn’t going to carry, as it was such a short trip and routine, but I remembered the promise, and I also had respect for Jessica and the other individuals who work at the store, and on the off chance something crazy happened, I wanted to be able to protect all of us.

I kissed my wife goodbye, told her I loved her, and said “I’ll be right back.” My older son was blocking the door, so I told him to “scoot,” and walked out of the house to the awaiting vehicle.

Because of the way I sit in the Corvette, with my left leg operating the clutch, it is more comfortable for me to carry at the 11:00 position, if 12:00 is your navel, versus carrying at the standard 1:00. This allows more travel for my left leg to use the clutch, versus my right which is operating the gas pedal, and I can also lean towards the shift lever. This puts the barrel directly against my left thigh in the holster.

I left the house at around 9:00am. I do enjoy the drive in the Corvette, so the typical 15 minute ride was much quicker. I will have to check the video, but I believe I arrived at the pool supply store at around 9:10. I parked in front of the door, appreciating my luck at getting such VIP parking. I turned off my Corvette, and checked my phone. I looked left and saw Jessica’s red Chevrolet HHR, so I knew she was there. I sat for a few minutes before getting ready to go in the store.

The way in which I have to sit to operate the Corvette with my stature causes me to be leaned to my right. To exit the vehicle, which is very similar to a cockpit, means I have to lean hard to my left to get out. As I leaned to get out, I heard “BANG!!” I was very confused, as I thought my engine had just blown, but the vehicle was off. My next thought was that a passing car had kicked up a rock and hit one of my windows. I had not felt a thing; touched the weapon; nothing. It wasn’t until I smelt the gunpowder that I looked down. It was like a scene from a cartoon; a wisp of smoke coming out of my leg. In disbelief, I said “oh shit. Oh no.” I pulled back my shorts and slider shorts, and that was when the blood from the entry wound started pulsating out of my leg. I grabbed the pistol out of the holster and tossed it across the car, fearing it was going to go off again. I’m honestly not sure where the spent shell casing went to this day. Still in the gun maybe?I went into fight or flight mode, and was determined to fight.

I have been going to this pool store since we bought our house, 1 year prior, and was very familiar with a woman named Jessica. I affectionately referred to her as Dr. Jessica, as she should have a PHD in pool care. Little did either of us know she was about to earn that title in a different way. I opened the door to my car and went to step out to go get her for help. In my recollection, my left leg failed and I fell. In reality from the video, I fell but caught myself on my door, stood back up, and bunny-hopped one legged to the front door of the pool store.

As I got to the door, I started screaming for Jessica. “Jessica! Jessica! 911! Call an ambulance, I’ve been shot!” Jessica came to the door in a panic, asked me who shot me, and I told her that my handgun had gone off. She immediately got on her phone with 911, while I stayed at the front door. It was at this point I looked down and saw the blood trail I was leaving. It was massive. In my mind, there was no way I hadn’t just been shot through my femoral artery. I had made my peace with death in 2017 with Hurricane Irma in the Caribbean, so I wasn’t scared. I wasn’t in pain yet. I was SO sad. Sad I was going to die in a parking lot after everything I have survived for something out of my control. Sad about my wife; my rock and soul, raising these two boys as a single mother, and that I would never see her again.

Having the friend group that I do, I may not be trained in being a field medic, but I have picked up enough over the years to have an idea of what I needed to do (Thank you Preston and Alex). I took off my shirt (it was a rash-guard, so it was stretchy), I took off my shorts because I knew the paramedics would need access to the wound when they got there, and when Jessica got back to me, I told her to take the rash-guard and use it as a tourniquet on my leg, and tie it as tight as she possibly could. It was at this point I started yelling for someone to bring me a belt, to use as a pressure dressing. Jessica applied the shirt tourniquet, and I knew I needed to get the injury elevated above my heart to save me a few precious minutes before EMT arrived. I got back to my Corvette, laid on the ground, and put my left leg in the driver’s seat above me.

At this time, the staff of the shop across the business complex, State Farm run by Tim Keef, had heard the commotion and come outside. One of his employees happened to have a belt in her car and ran to get it out of her trunk. It was a white, 3” wide leather belt. Literally the best thing that could have been available in that situation, aside from an actual tourniquet. At this point, Tim, who I had never met, had figured out something was going on, and came outside to check it out. Tim is trained in basic field medics, and applied the pressure dressing to my leg while I laid there.

I remember looking up to see and meet Tim for the first time, and it was like the scene from Spider-man with the upside down kiss. He leaned over me, looked down at my leg with wide eyes, then looked back into mine. I will never forget this conversation:

“Are you religious brother?”

“Not really.”

“I think today you need to be. Can I pray for you?”

“Sure.”

This was the moment that the realization of the situation set in for me. I was going to die in this parking lot. I was receiving my battlefield sermon. I thought of my wife. I had attempted to call her, but my phone was so covered in blood I couldn’t make it work, and also the shock of the situation was, I am sure, in play. The same woman who gave me the belt took my phone, and while Tim prayed over me, she called my wife.

At this point, Jessica has had the most traumatic morning of her life and had to step away, Tim is praying over me and holding the pressure dressing, EMS arrives with Clute PD. I had lost most of the blood in my body at this point. My vision is starting to go. I am not very coherent. PD asks me where the weapon is, I tell the lady and she secures it. Tim keeps on with the pressure dressing as EMS starts to work. My vision is fading now. The “light at the end of the tunnel?” That is your eyesight retracting from the outside in as you are dying. Sorry to spoil it for you. Then Tim’s employee hands me my phone, and on the other line, is my wife. To begin to even describe my love for this woman is beyond explanation. We have been together 20 years. She’s as much my sibling as the love of my life. The sound of her voice on the other end of that phone brought me back with a jolt of adrenaline that saved my life. I would come back from the depths of hell for that woman, and that day I very well may have.

Tim helped the EMS pick me up and load me into the ambulance, which in itself is a funny story because he had to do way more than any civilian should have. The two EMS got in the back with me, while one of the PD drove. The male EMS technician told me, “hold on, we dont have enough EMS for you and to drive, so PD is driving. Hold on.” Now, at the time, I assumed that was just the reality. The actuality is that I was minutes from death and they needed to get me to the hospital RAPIDLY. We got to the hospital, where Lifeflight was already on and waiting. They literally YANKED me out of the ambulance on the stretcher, and tossed me on to the board for Life-Flight. We took off in seconds.

There is no way at this point I should still be alive, yet alone cognizant. I am still on the phone with my wife. We can barely hear each other over the helicopter blades and the children screaming as she races to meet me in Houston. Somehow, I am still there. The tech lets me know he’s going to apply a real tourniquet, and that it was going to hurt. Knowing what I know from discussions with Preston, I told him “It better.” It did. I look at the Life-Flight technician, decked out in what made him look almost like Delta Force, and he starts working on me. 2 Blood bags and an IV to start. After my wife and I get off the phone for her to start making phone calls to our family, I just asked the technician straight up. “Am I going to die? Be brutally honest with me.” He looks down, and I can’t see his face behind the tinted flight helmet visor, and just says, “You have a chance.” Then he gave me morphine.

I went on a fantastical trip to the moon in cartoon land. I am not sure if he was just so accurate in his dosage, or if he gave me something to wake me up as we landed, but that is when I came to. I can remember, still being probably high as a kite, being wheeled rapidly into surgery. As they wheeled me in, I heard very vividly my mother, my sister and my wife talking in the waiting room. This was obviously impossible in reality, but I was hearing the voices of the 3 most important women in my life: The one I Love, the one who raised me, and the one I promised to always take care of.

Into surgery I go. It was like something out of TV. 12 Doctors and attendants. So many bright lights. One of the nurses asked me two basic questions, slapped the anesthesia on me. Fade to black. I was in surgery for two hours. I don’t remember the first hour of recovery, and it was so traumatic that Grace, who was the only one allowed in, has still yet to tell me what happened. I personally came to with my mother and Grace in the room, shaking violently and screaming from the pain. Both of them being my rock and yelling at the nurses to give me pain medications. The nurses just didn’t want to. I must have already been on an insane amount.

The bullet entered my thigh point blank about 5 inches below my groin. It was a Hornady critical defense round, 9mm. A show stopper. Thankfully, it was so close, it exited before it had the chance to expand, which would have absolutely stopped my show entirely. It obliterated my Femoral Vein, which is the return line for your Femoral artery that is connected to your heart and supplies all the blood to your leg. I have a 10” incision in my thigh from them having to open me up, clean me out, and cap the Femoral Vein. It no longer exists in my left leg as a functioning part of my body. My Femoral Artery was nicked, and had begun clotting, so they had to cut that open and repair as well. There is a nerve center in your thigh that controls all the nerves in your leg. That got eviscerated, destroying the functionality of my foot for life, and causing constant, indescribable nerve pain. The cavitation wound, which is what happens with the explosion of gunpowder as it passes through flesh, was the size of my fist, destroying muscle, nerves, and anything else it could find on its way out. Thankfully, the bullet did not hit any bone and passed clean; as clean as it could have happened.

I was up and walking with a walker the next day. Discharged in 56 hours. The next 200 days of my life are something I would never wish on anyone. It’s not something I want to get into right now. I will write that out at a later date.

This event has irrevocably changed my life, my abilities, my marriage, my fatherhood, my spirituality, and my appreciation for the day. All for something out of my control. Don’t let friends buy SIG SAUR. My mother thought she was facing the death of another child. My siblings, the loss of another sibling. My wife, with a 4 month old baby in her arms and a toddler, thinking she had just become a widow. Her, facing the impossible task of not only taking care of these children, working a full time job, and two massive house-horse dogs, but then also a man-baby of a husband needing constant care and attention; the fact she has stayed with me is amazing, and a testament to her resolve. It has been an absolute struggle. One we are still trying to work through, but she is still by my side.