A hard-working immigrant struck by a stray bullet while riding a Brooklyn MTA bus home from his fast food shift is in too much pain to return to his job, he told the Daily News.
Del Geraldo Charles, 25, was on his way home from a Wendy’s near Kennedy Airport where he works as a cook when his B15 bus got caught in crossfire between two moving vehicles in Brownsville.
Charles, who was sitting near the front of the bus, was struck when a bullet pierced the windshield near Hegeman Ave. and Thomas Boyland St. about 1:25 a.m. last Sunday. He has a bullet still lodged in his shoulder and a graze wound near his neck.
“You can feel it. It’s here. It’s lodged,” Charles said, pressing on the bullet that has created a lump on the back of his shoulder.
”When I heard the sound, the bullet sound, everybody got down on the floor,” Charles, who is originally from Haiti, said in Creole.
“I thought people on the street were throwing rocks at the bus. That’s what I thought. After I got seated, after 30 seconds, I saw a lot of blood on my shirt.”
Charles, who takes three buses to get home from work, was on the second leg of his commute when he was shot.
“I didn’t feel it,” Charles said. “I said, ‘Oh, the shirt is red.’ Someone helped me on the bus. One woman. She took a towel and put it on me.”
Now the pain is almost unbearable.
“It really hurts,” he said from the bed of his Brooklyn home. “I have pain. I cannot move this one,” he said of his left arm.
Charles was discharged from Brookdale University Hospital the same day he was shot. He has an appointment with a surgeon next week to see about removing the bullet.
Charles and his cousin Hamadi Jaques, 34, came to New York about six months ago and are roommates in Flatbush. The shooting disrupted their routine.
“We don’t really have friends, only work and home,” Jaques said. “We don’t even go to a bar or restaurant. We don’t do that yet. We’re focused on work … Sometimes we both play games together. Video games. That’s it. Only people we have is our family. Cousins. Even a girlfriend, we don’t have girlfriends.”
Jaques noted the irony of coming to America to escape the violence and chaos in Haiti only to be shot on a bus in New York City.
”Why this happened here?’” Jaques recalled the victim’s mother asking. “A lot of things happen in Haiti. Gun violence. Murder. They burn everything. Burn hospitals, burn schools. Nothing’s working over there.”
But even after getting shot, Charles said he is still better off in Brooklyn. “I’m very happy to stay in New York,” Del said.
Cops said Charles was one of just four people on the bus, including the driver, when two rounds tore through the windshield.
The melee began when a black sedan cut in front of the bus and a second black sedan pulled up to the driver’s side, police said. Shots were fired from both cars.
Police said one bullet was found inside the bus, with the other lodged in the victim’s shoulder.
Two casings, each from a different gun, a 9mm and a .45, were recovered nearby.
Charles is scared to get back on the bus again.
“He wants to go back to work,” Jaques said. “The boss was calling yesterday asking when he can come back. He wants to go to work but he can’t, he really can’t. The doctor said that he’s very lucky [to be alive].”
Charles agreed.
“It’s not a good experience but I want to say to everyone who is working out in the street to be careful, be vigilant and still pray to God,” he said. “Keep praying. I could be dead. I think Jesus saved my life.”
“Life is very important,” he added. “You got one life. Don’t take it away. Don’t shoot people.”
