The day I nearly died

One Sunday afternoon a bullet brought Dex Goodman’s life to a standstill. But that day taught him about hope, human kindness and how to appreciate each moment
As told to Mariette Crafford

I should have died that Sunday. With a hole in my lung and a bullet lodged in my spine, I should have become another fatality in the wake of violent crime.

I was left paralysed and bleeding to death at a municipal dumping ground in Johannesburg. But my story isn’t really about crime and its victims. It’s about survival, about saviours in the form of two children, about humanity in the last place I would have expected it. It’s also about the complete lack of care and concern where I would have expected it.

At first I thought I was imagining the voice. It was Sunday, 17 December 2000, and I was off-loading garden refuse at the municipal refuse dump in Johannesburg’s southern suburbs. I looked up. A teenager, no more than 17, was pointing a rusty old .38 Special revolver at me. I really thought it was a joke. That he was just fooling around.

Then somebody else grabbed me from behind. I still had a somewhat unsure smile on my face. A million thoughts went through my head. I decided the only way to get out of this alive was to fight back. As I managed to free myself from the guy who was holding me, I hit the ground. I didn’t hear a sound, but I knew I had been shot. Feeling and sensation drained from my body and I knew, instantly, I was paralysed.

Two guys were on top of me, removing my firearm from the holster in the front of my pants. The four of them headed for the car and that’s when I saw my stepson Nick (14) getting out.

I was terrified for his safety and begged them to take what they wanted, but to leave us alone. They rummaged through the car, tried to take the keys out of the ignition and then ran off, shouting that they’d return.

I sent Nick to the main road at once to get help. Everything was happening really fast, yet the next few moments seemed like hours as I processed what had just happened. I was unable to move, blood running from my mouth, and I couldn’t feel where I’d been shot. I had to face the reality of my mortality.

I was 33 years old. How could I live my life without the use of my body? What would happen to my family? I was the sole provider. I had let my life insurance lapse a few months earlier . . . Yet I found peace. If I’m going to die here, I thought, there’s nothing I can change. I felt such a great sense of release and peace.

Then I heard a commotion. Two children, about nine or 10 years old, came running towards me, screaming. It brought me back to the moment. My first thought was that they were going to rob me as well.

“We want to help you,” they repeated again and again.
“Check if the key is still in the ignition.” It was.
“Come, help me to the car,” I directed them. But they couldn’t help me – I was far too heavy, the young arms too thin. I dragged myself four or five metres to the car and hauled myself onto the back seat.

“Who’s going to drive?” I asked. Both jumped eagerly into the front. From the back seat I coached the kid in the driver’s seat. Start. Put it into gear. That’s the brake! Watch out – don’t step too hard on the fuel pedal.

He was great. The car stalled a few times but then we were off. We zigzagged our way to the main road as fast as my car could go in first gear. That in itself was pretty scary!

As we approached the main road I spotted a man with both arms on top of a white Mercedes, aiming as if he was about to fire at us. To him it must’ve looked like a hijacking.

This was the man whom my stepson had flagged down. I opened the window, waving frantically: “Please don’t shoot!” After being stopped by Nick, the man had phoned the ambulance, the police and my wife.

When my wife arrived she saw my car and thought that everything was fine, only to discover nothing would be the same again.

Being self-employed in the IT industry I had no medical insurance so I had to go to a state hospital. The paramedics, experts in dealing with injuries from violent crimes, suggested either Baragwanath or Sebokeng hospital.

The adrenaline that had numbed the pain and spurred me on was starting to wear off. My lungs were burning and breathing was becoming extremely difficult. I was in a lot of pain.

Fear gripped me. “Am I going to die?” I asked the paramedic. “Will I be okay?” I asked again. He didn’t reply. The siren was the only sound. The ambulance was racing through the streets and I hoped it wouldn’t crash – I know how people drive on the Old Vereeniging Road.

When we arrived at Sebokeng Hospital at about 7 pm, I was put on a steel trolley and wheeled into a curtained cubicle to wait for treatment. So many things went through my mind during those hours, but above all else was the realisation that my life had changed dramatically.

After about five hours of lying around on that hard, cold surface without any treatment whatsoever, very unsympathetic nursing staff finally attended to me. X-rays were taken and I was wheeled into a smaller room. A Cuban doctor walked over to me, scalpel in hand, casually talking to someone at the door.

All I could think was, “No, you’re not really going to start cutting me with that thing without an injection!” But that’s just what he did. Without even acknowledging my presence, he positioned the scalpel between my ribs and stuck it into me – as if I was a piece of meat on a butcher’s table. Having made the incision, he forced a hard plastic pipe through the hole and into my lung to drain the fluid that had accumulated there.*

Without saying a word to me the doctor instructed the staff to move me to a ward. The bed that was allocated to me had a thick crust of someone else’s blood. My sister, who had just arrived, bluntly refused to let me stay under these conditions and began phoning other hospitals to find one that would accommodate me.

But money was the problem. One hospital wanted R100 000 upfront before even admitting me. Mulbarton Hospital on the East Rand agreed to accept R3 000 on admission and a further R10 000 payable by 10 am that day.

My sister managed to stop a Netcare 911 ambulance, which had just dropped off a patient, and arrange for it to take me to Mulbarton. The paramedics insisted that I receive an injection to relieve the agony – up to this point I had not received anything for pain. They had to be very persistent with the doctor.

Being transferred to the Netcare stretcher was like landing on a cloud after the cold steel trolley on which I had spent the night. At around 3 am I was admitted to Mulbarton, where I was taken to ICU.

First thing in the morning X-rays had to be taken again because Sebokeng did not want to release theirs. After examining the X-rays the neurosurgeon came to discuss my condition.

“Should I be straight with you?” he asked.
“Yes.”
“You’re screwed.”
Before he said those words, I had actually accepted that this was the case. He explained how the bullet had entered below my shoulder blade, gone through my lung and was now lodged in my spine at my seventh chest vertebra. There was no point in removing it.

The care at Mulbarton was excellent, but there wasn’t much they could do to help me apart from monitoring my condition.

Four days later I went home with pneumonia from the trauma to my lung. My wife had decided to take me home and care for me, to save money and to have me home for Christmas.

As I was self-employed I couldn’t afford to take much time off and I was back at work within six weeks of being shot and paralysed.

Life goes on. I have lost some of my bodily functions, but my life is good and I’m happy. I’m privileged to be there for my teenagers. I can love and receive love every day from my family and strangers alike. Two years ago I relocated to the Cape and I like living near the sea. I enjoy good food, playing my saxophone and my work.

When faced with dying, I came to the realisation that life is precarious and everything can change in a heartbeat. I have learned to appreciate each moment: that now, this very moment, is all we are guaranteed.

One day – possibly when you least expect it – you’ll stare death in the face. That’s when the things that seemed so important in the past no longer have any meaning. What’s happening right now is my life.

* An incision is made in the thorax and one end of a hard plastic draining pipe is inserted into the incision while the other end is placed in a bucket with water. Air escapes through the pipe from the chest. An area of negative pressure is formed in the chest so that the flattened lung can be pumped up with each breath of the patient.

Dex Goodman (41) lives in St James with his family. He owns and runs an entertainment website, WhatsOnSA.co.za.

Spinal injuries
Dr Rudolf Oosthuizen, a Johannesburg orthopaedic surgeon, comments on Dex’s injuries:
“Even if Dex’s spinal cord wasn’t blown off, he would still have been paralysed by the impact of the bullet. The shock-wave effect of a bullet injures the spinal cord so badly the patient is paralysed. “The lower the injury in the spinal column, the more bodily functions stay active.”

How do I help?
How do you help someone with a spinal injury without doing more damage? Oosthuizen provides some guidelines.

1. Firstly, try to save the patient’s life. Do the life essentials first, such as making sure he can breathe correctly. Try to recover the life signs.


2. Any gunshot wound near the spine should be treated as if it could injure the spine and lead to paralysis, even though the person can move his limbs. Don’t make the person sit up or move and preferably keep him as still as possible since a wrong movement can actually deal the final blow to a damaged spinal cord.


3. Try to determine the neurological state of the patient: if there are injuries in the upper chest area the patient won’t be able to move his arms. If it’s a neck injury the patient won’t be able to move either the legs or arms. If the injury is anywhere near the brain the patient won’t only be unable to move the limbs, but breathing will also be impaired. This person could die.


4. If necessary turn the wounded person over as you would a tree stump: that is, handle the body as one unit, turning the upper body and the lower body at the same time. In this case two or more people are better than one.


5. If the patient appears to have injured the spine (judging by the immobility of the limbs) as a result of a car crash, it is better to let him lie down with the least disruption possible. The weight of the sitting position can injure the spinal cord even more. Lay the patient down using the tree stump method – handling the upper and lower body as a whole.

Post-traumtic stress disorder

Gunshot wounds