Shoot-out in the deep South, where Dr J realises the importance of family

Dr J likes to travel. He really believes it broadens the mind (not to mention the waistline), but this was his first visit to Atlanta. The heat was amazing, made doubly bad by the very high humidity, so stepping into the air conditioned lobby of the bank was a blessed relief. He just needed some cash, he wouldn't be long. His business would be concluded within 10 minutes. In fact, it took less than 10 seconds.

At first he thought that someone had swung a baseball bat at his shoulders. It was a tremendous blow and brought instant pain, but immediately he heard the bark of the guns and realized that this was something else. The person next to him had fallen on one knee, blood seeping from the wound in his thigh. It was only then he realized that he'd been hit as well.

The gunman had been a teenager, a chancer possibly looking for money for a drug habit. Dr J would never know. The teenager managed 2 shots, hitting Dr J and his neighbour. The security guard also managed 2 shots and the teenager was dead.

The bullet had penetrated Dr J's left lung and lodged a few inches away from his heart. As the surgeon said later, "You're lucky; a couple of inches to the right and you'd be dead". Dr J replied, "A couple of inches to the left and he'd have missed". Dr J learnt a lot about luck that day.

He couldn’t wait to get out of the US hospital and get back home. In far too short a time he was on a plane back to the UK and straight into a BUPA hospital in Oxford. It was a mistake. The UK hospital acquired infection was going to take a lot longer to cure than the bullet wound. He eventually left hospital to go home still nursing a chest drain. Now a chest drain takes a lot of maintenance, but luckily for Dr J his wife was a doctor, and a damn good one. With love and patience she tended to his wounds until eventually all that was left was a set of rather dramatic scars. He knew, that whatever else life would bring, he was lucky with his choice of wife and that he owed her – big time.