To say that David Ortiz is lucky to be alive would be an understatement.
Considering the shooter came up right behind him, 99 of 100 times this ends up being fatal. He is a very lucky man.
Former Boston Red Sox slugger and Dominican star David Ortiz is out of surgery and doing “fine,” according to his family, after he was shot Sunday at a club in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic.
Ortiz’s media assistant, Leo Lopez, told ESPN’s Enrique Rojas that Ortiz is stable but still in intensive care.
“Doctors say he is out of danger, but he is heavily sedated and will be in intensive care for the next 24 hours,” Lopez said.
Lopez, a veteran reporter, said the operation lasted six hours and was performed by three doctors, led by Dr. Abel Gonzalez. The team had to remove part of Ortiz’s intestines and colon, as well as his gallbladder. Ortiz suffered liver damage.
The gunman was identified as Eddy Feliz Garcia, 25, according to police spokesman Col. Frank Duran Mejia. Dominican National Police Director Ney Aldrin Bautista Almonte said Garcia was captured and beaten by a crowd of people at the bar. He suffered a cranium contusion and trauma to his thorax, left knee and right leg, according to the Dominican Republic’s National Health Service. He was treated at the Dario Contreras Hospital in Santo Domingo and then released to police custody.
Dionisio Soldevila, a reporter from the Dominican who hosts a radio show with ESPN’s Rojas, told ESPN that he spoke with the doctor who first treated Ortiz and was told Ortiz was shot in the lower back and that the bullet went through his body. According to Soldevila, Ortiz told his doctors, “Please don’t let me die. I’m a good man.”
Flip the pages for the shooting and the locals beating the man’s ass.