WebMD the Magazine s 2006 Health Heroes Meet four everyday Americans who faced their own health challenges and now give back to others. By Lauren Paige Kennedy
Finding a New Life After Gunshot Wound and Paralysis I am one of five boys. All of my brothers had been shot, one of them six times. I was the only one who hadn t been. Guess I was waiting my turn, says Eric Gibson, a former South Central L.A. gang member who was recruited for thuggery and drug dealing at 13.
In 1993, at age 25, his turn arrived in the form of a drive-by shooting that sprayed five bullets from a .357 Magnum into his body, leaving him bound to a wheelchair forever. It was the best thing that ever happened to me, he says now. I told the Lord in the ambulance that if he saved me, I would spend my life cleaning up the mess I d made.