Mexstan

Interesting news item:

Hit by bullet, trucker stayed at the wheel
Hoosier's instinct was to keep semi from wrecking after being shot in the head.


By Staci Hupp
staci.hupp@indystar.com
October 25, 2004


The first thought that crossed Amy Holder's mind when she was shot in the head wasn't the pain, the blood that ran down her face or the broken glass that sprayed across her lap.

The Paris Crossing, Ind., truck driver's first priority was keeping her 78,500-pound semi from swerving into other traffic or the ditch.

"I don't think I initially thought I was bleeding," said Holder, 34, who hauls kitchen appliances and other freight from Chicago to Dallas with her husband. "I didn't want to wreck the truck. I just did what I had to do."

The small-caliber bullet shattered the driver-side window last week as she cruised I-44 about 70 miles southwest of St. Louis. She suffered no serious head injuries and was released from a hospital the next day with a few stitches.

Holder is the ninth driver since February whose window has exploded on that same stretch of road near Bourbon, Mo. Investigators want to know if the incidents are related.

Already, the case has alarmed investigators and drawn nationwide attention just seven months after a suspect was arrested in connection with more than 20 sniper shootings on I-270 near Columbus, Ohio. One woman died in that shooting spree.

The bullet fragments in Holder's head and the truck's cab are the first sign of gunfire among the nine Missouri reports.

"We have nothing proofwise to show the others were definitely bullets," said Chris Crawford, an assistant chief of communications for the Missouri State Highway Patrol. "It could have been a rock; it could have been some type of debris. There could have been many situations. We do not have the evidence to say it was a sniper."

Investigators believe, however, that Holder's shooter pulled the trigger from a fixed position.

She was listening to satellite radio and the hum of the trucks' engine, Holder said, when "all of a sudden the window exploded," she said. "I had no idea what it was."

The shattered glass that Holder initially thought was responsible for the blood on her head and face probably saved her life.

The driver-side window usually stays up to muffle the roar of the wind and the engine. On Thursday, the glass slowed the bullet before it entered Holder's head just above her left temple.

"The first officer on the scene, he was the first one that mentioned I could have been shot," Holder said Sunday, two days after her release from a Missouri hospital. "That just blew me away. I didn't have any idea."

Holder, who was shot on her 34th birthday, steered the 18-wheeler onto the shoulder as she called for her husband, who had been sleeping in the back of the truck's cab.

Travis Holder admits he wasn't as composed as his wife was.

"I get up there, and the window's gone, there's glass everywhere, and she's bleeding down her head and face," said Travis Holder, 34.

"I didn't know what was going on," he said. "I couldn't talk straight."

Travis Holder hurriedly pressed paper towels to her wound, but the blood quickly soaked through them. Then he grabbed a T-shirt and called 911. Amy Holder, who remained conscious, told her husband to drive her to a gasoline station.

"We thought whatever hit the window, it was the glass that was causing her to bleed," Travis Holder said.

"We never thought of a bullet wound."

Paramedics arrived within minutes.

When a police officer told Travis Holder that a helicopter would take his wife to a nearby hospital, "I lost it," he said. "I thought I was going to lose my wife on her birthday."

Hospital tests detected the bullet, but authorities haven't identified the caliber.

The bullet hit Amy Holder's skull and exited the top of her head -- about 2 inches from where it went in.

Doctors decided against the complicated surgery to remove leftover metal fragments, she said.

On Sunday, Amy Holder had four stitches, a swollen face, two black eyes, "a hell of a headache" -- and the itch to get back on the road.

"My thing is, if I stop driving, then this guy who shot me controls my life," said Holder, who declined to identify her employer. "Nobody's going to control my life for me."

The Holders married two years ago. The couple have six children between them.

Her weekend has been a flurry of telephone calls from family members and news reporters. Holder is expected on CNN today and was interviewed Sunday on NBC's "Today" show.

Her mother watched the TV interview Sunday from the family home in Paris Crossing, a Jennings County community of 500 about midway between Seymour and Madison. It was Shirley Kilby's first glimpse of her daughter since the shooting.

"I was very, very happy when I saw her on TV today, even with her black eye," said Kilby, who will see her daughter in person when the Holders return from Dallas. "As long as we have the phone connection and I can hear her voice, that makes me feel pretty good."

Amy Holder is used to bouncing back, her mother said. As a teenager, the strong-willed Holder overcame a life-threatening congenital heart defect that required surgery.

"She's been through a lot," Kilby said. "She's my miracle kid."

Call Star reporter Staci Hupp at (317) 444-6253.

bdramsey

Holder is the ninth driver since February whose window has exploded on that same stretch of road near Bourbon, Mo. Investigators want to know if the incidents are related.

Hey george. ........ look out for that tree!!!!!!!!!!!!

I wonder if 9 incidents of people getting shot while driving down the freeway would be related to!!

Jeeez.....Misery's finest!