2005/04/14

Don't drop the soap, drop the chapstick.

Steven Jacobs, a physician's assistant in Brooklyn, N.Y., dropped his tube of lip balm at work last Wednesday — and bent over to pick it up just as a bullet flew through his office window, reports the New York Post.

Police and witnesses said Jacobs, 35, was working at the Ditmas Park Rehab/Care Center just before 3 p.m. when two men started arguing on the street outside.

One guy pulled out a BB gun — which prompted the other to yank out a real handgun and get off several shots.

One bullet hit the first man in the jaw. Another ricocheted and went right into Jacobs' office window just as he reached for the ChapStick.

"I thought there was car backfiring in the parking lot," said Jacobs, a former Israeli policeman. "The second shot told me I needed to stay down."

Jacobs was hit above the eye by flying glass, but the cut was not serious, and he said his injuries could have been much worse.

"There's a hole in the window over there, and seconds before, I was standing up there," he said. "I was very fortunate. God was with me, no question. If God wanted me dead, I would be dead."

The man shot outside went to the hospital, while the shooter got away.

After Jacobs' close call made the newspapers, he got a call from Wyeth Consumer Healthcare, makers of ChapStick.

"Wyeth wants to make sure that he has ChapStick available forever," spokeswoman Heather Scherman told the Post.

Jacobs was soon to receive a case of 100 ChapSticks, the beginning of a free lifetime supply.

"I'm very happy," said Jacobs. "I use it all the time."

I think Jacobs was a very lucky man indeed. Although the article doesn't say that he would have been hit by the stray bullet, it does imply that. What I have to ask is WTF is up with the guy pulling a BB gun on someone in New York. I mean, sure, NYC has strict gun control policy, so one might think pulling a BB gun some form of power projection. Wrong assumption in this case.

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