Just give 'em...

[Fusion pimp]

...the money and nobody gets hurt, right?



Man shot on vacation: Chaska man recovering after being accosted
Mollee Francisco of the Chaska Herald
Staff Writer

Vic Carlson still sports a slight tan from his family's winter vacation down south. But a tan wasn't the only souvenir the Chaska resident brought back.

Carlson also came home with two gunshot wounds, and a belly full of staples, all thanks to an early-morning car wash gone awry.

On March 8 Carlson, 46, was shot by an unidentified man while visiting San Antonio.

Carlson has been home recovering. However, the emotional wounds of his experience were reopened last week, when he and his wife caught the news about visitor from West Virginia being shot during a robbery in the Uptown neighborhood of Minneapolis. Unlike Carlson, Michael Zebuhr did not survive the shooting.

\"He ended up dying,\" said Carlson. \"So I'm lucky.\"

Down south
Carlson, along with wife Kathy and his two sons, left Chaska and hit the road for Louisiana on March 2. After visiting relatives there and, later, in Austin, Texas, the Carlson family headed to San Antonio.

\"We spent the day on the Riverwalk and at the Alamo,\" Carlson recalled. \"It was a good day.\"

That night, the Carlsons stayed at a Days Inn near the freeway so they could easily be on their way to South Padre Island early the next day. Carlson thought it was a safe neighborhood.

\"There was a Sonic drive-in, a Denny's, an Exxon station, a Wal-Mart,\" he said. \"It seemed fine.\"

Carlson didn't sleep well that night, and decided to get up early to put gas in the car and wash it before they took off for the day. \"I had noticed a car wash nearby,\" he said.

Around 5 a.m., Carlson took a $50 bill from his wife's purse, grabbed his wallet and headed to the car wash. When he arrived, it was quiet and desolate, but Carlson went about washing the car without a second thought.

\"I was all finished and went to hang the wand up in the holder when a guy popped up from behind the trunk like he had been hiding somewhere,\" Carlson recalled. \"He had a gun drawn and pointed right at my forehead.\"

Carlson remembers wondering if the whole thing was real, but he didn't have much time to think as the man, whom Carlson describes as having been in his 20s or 30s with a red bandana covering his lower face, told him to get in the car.

Carlson didn't obey the man. Instead, he reached in his pocket for his wallet.

\"I said, ‘Here, you can have everything I've got. Just don't shoot me. I'm here on vacation with my family,'\" he recounted.

Again the man told Carlson to get in the car.

\"I knew if I got in the car I was dead,\" said Carlson.

Survival mode
He had only moments to make a decision about what he would do next, knowing his family was waiting for him back at the hotel.

\"I thought, I'm pretty sure I'm dead anyway,\" he said. \"The man was standing no more than (10 feet) away. I'm going to make a run for it and hope he's a bad shot.\"

Despite repeated demands from the man to get in the car, Carlson opted to throw his wallet at the man's feet and see if he went for it. The man did, and as he bent over to pick it up, Carlson ran for it.

\"I got about 30 feet,\" said Carlson. \"I was in the parking lot and he (shot) me in the arm.\"

Despite the two-inch gash in his arm from the bullet grazing the inside of his left elbow, Carlson kept running.

\"I was able to keep my momentum going,\" he said.

Just as he arrived at the edge of a highway, which Carlson likened to Highway 169, he was hit again, this time in the back.

\"I flew like Superman, only right down on the pavement,\" he recalled. The fall resulted in abrasions along his arms, legs and face. But Carlson didn't know he had been shot at the time.

\"I wasn't really feeling any pain,\" he said. \"I just felt really warm and was having a hard time breathing.\"

But Carlson didn't have time to worry about any of that. His main concern was where the gunman was located. From his position on the highway pavement, he looked up and saw the man still standing by the carwash.

\"I sat up and saw cars coming toward me,\" he said. \"I started waving my arms to try to get someone to stop.\"

Five cars went by, but none stopped for the injured man.

\"I looked again for the gunman and he was gone,\" said Carlson. \"I guess the cars scared him.\"

Carlson got up and ran to a nearby business that had its lights on and appeared to be open. He banged on the doors but there was no answer. Knowing that the hotel was only a few blocks away from the car wash, Carlson decided to run across the highway again and back to the hotel.

By that time, he was starting to feel the effects of the gunshot wounds.

\"I knew I was in pain,\" he said. \"I didn't know where.\"

Carlson entered the hotel and told the front desk employee that he had been shot in the arm and needed an ambulance. It was then that another man pointed out that he had not only been shot in the arm, but also in the back. Police would later discover that three shots were fired at Carlson, the third failing to make contact with Carlson's body.

Hotel staff called for an ambulance and then up to Carlson's wife who was in the room readying the kids for the day.

\"I told them to tell her I was having a medical emergency,\" he recalled. \"She came down thinking I was having a heart attack.\"

An ambulance rushed Carlson to a nearby gas station with a large enough parking lot to land a helicopter. From there, Carlson was airlifted to University Hospital, a trauma center.

\"I never lost consciousness,\" he noted.

Recovery
Once he arrived at University Hospital, Carlson's abdomen had to be opened up to retrieve the bullet and repair a punctured spleen, a damaged diaphragm and a collapsed lung.

Despite all of the injuries, Carlson got lucky.

\"The bullet entered my back on my left side, heading right toward my heart,\" he explained. \"A half-inch from my heart it dodged down and went for my spleen instead.\"

Carlson spent the next nine days in the hospital, the first three of which were spent in intensive care. He was supposed to spend at least two weeks in house, but his rehabilitation went so well that doctors agreed to let him go home early.

\"I was so happy that I was finally going to go home,\" he said.

Carlson arrived back at his Maple Street home on March 18. He has another six weeks of recuperation ahead of him before he can even think about returning to his general warehouse work.

\"I'm not allowed to lift a thing,\" he noted.

Three times a day, Carlson's wife repacks his wounds but he isn't feeling too much pain. Pain medication keeps that in check.

\"I'm just really uncomfortable,\" he said. \"And there's nothing on television during the day.\"

It's a definite change in lifestyle for Carlson, who admits to being more \"go-go-go\" before the shooting.

\"This has changed me,\" he said. \"It's changed a lot.\"

According to Carlson, police have had little luck tracking down the man that shot him. Though the man took Carlson's wallet he didn't use any of the credit cards it contained.

\"I think he just wanted some quick cash,\" said Carlson.

As he reflects back on the experience, Carlson can't think of anything he would have done different being accosted by a man wielding a gun.

\"I had a split second to make up my mind,\" he said. \"I think I made the right decision.\"

Still, vacations have taken on a different view for Carlson. He admits that this will weigh heavily on his mind the next time he packs the wife and boys in the car to go somewhere.

\"You think you're on a family vacation. You think you're safe, but it's not necessarily the case.\"

[Kilarin]

\"I thought, I'm pretty sure I'm dead anyway,\" he said. \"The man was standing no more than (10 feet) away. I'm going to make a run for it and hope he's a bad shot.\"

Right choice. NEVER go to the second crime scene. Your odds running are much better than the odds of ever coming back from the second crime scene.

[Genghis]

Since this is a Barry post I was waiting for the part where the victim drew and started blazing!

While I agree with the premise of the post (that giving 'em what they want does not guarantee your safety), I don't think this story illustrates it at all. The criminal here wasn't just after the guy's wallet; he apparently had some kidnapping/murder scheme in mind. Furthermore, by not getting in the car the victim did not give the guy what he wanted, so getting shot was no surprise. (Not that I think he should have gotten in the car; the victim seemed to play this nearly perfectly).

BTW B, I know I owe you a call.

[Fusion pimp]

G- Yeah, I assume you got my message. If I don't hear from you in a few days I'll try again.

B-