Conn. man survives when lunchbox stops bullets

[July 10, 2008]  NEW HAVEN, Conn. (AP) -- Carlos Juarez figures his lunchbox saved his life.

The 31-year-old was waiting for his ride to work early Tuesday in his driveway when two attempted robbers accosted him, demanding money, police said. Juarez said he had no money, and the would-be thieves opened fire, hitting him twice in the side.

Juarez said he reflexively held up his lunch cooler over his chest to shield himself from the bullets, and the cooler was hit twice.

"He thinks the cooler saved his life," Carlos Paz, a friend who translated for Juarez, told The Associated Press. "If he doesn't have the cooler, the shots come maybe in the heart."

Juarez still has one of the bullets that was in the cooler. A lunch container of rice and meat has a bullet hole, as does a package of gum also in the cooler.

After Juarez was shot, he climbed the stairs of the apartment building with the cooler still in his hand.

"Carlos, I got shot," he told his friend.

Paz said at first he didn't believe it, but then saw blood on his friend's side and called police.

Juarez, who was treated at a hospital and released, says doctors have been unable to remove two bullets from his side because of swelling. He also had a cut on his forehead that he suffered when one of the men hit him with what he thinks was a bat as Juarez reached for the cooler.

Juarez, who came to the United States from Ecuador about five years ago, works for a concrete flooring company.

No arrests had been made Wednesday.

[Associated Press; By JOHN CHRISTOFFERSEN]

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