Cell Phone Takes a Bullet, Saves Amputee’s Life

By Anastacia Mott Austin

It seems like cell phones can be programmed to do just about anything these days. Add taking a bullet for the team to the list. Roger Baxter, a Colorado Vietnam veteran who lost his lower right leg in a traffic accident last year, had just programmed his cell phone when it saved his life.

Last October Baxter was working for the Colorado Department of Transportation when a semi truck traveling at 70 mph hit him. He spent nearly a month in a coma, had 13 surgeries, and had his lower right leg amputated. Not one to be deterred by adversity, Baxter told reporters that when he saw his leg was gone, "I looked down and saw I had a leg missing and thought ‘Oh well, I’ll deal with it.’"

He has spent the last seven months learning to live with a wheelchair while undergoing intensive physical therapy to learn to walk with crutches.

Baxter and his wife arrived at their home at about 11:00 in the morning on Tuesday, after getting a haircut to get ready for a physical therapy session. They found an armed man inside their house attempting to break into their safe.

Instead of panicking, Baxter told the press, "I got mad." When the robber threatened him, "I told him to get the gun out of my face. I thought it was pretty low of him trying to rob somebody that’s disabled."

When the intruder got close enough, Baxter told reporters, "He kept coming toward me and he got within 5 foot of me and that’s when I hauled off and hit him with one of my crutches." The man responded by shooting Baxter in the chest. His cell phone was in his shirt pocket over his chest, and it deflected the bullet.

Baxter told local television reporters, "…he shot me. Hit me in my cell phone and ricocheted off of that, gave me a big gouge along the side here."

His wife, Deb, told TV station KUSA, "I thought he was dead after I heard the shot. [But] there he is trying to call 911, he says, ‘Get me a towel, I’m bleeding.’ It’s like, Oh, my God." She joked that they were planning to buy Baxter a titanium suit, "so nothing happens to him."

Baxter sees it this way: "It’s not my time. It wasn’t my time when I got hit by that semi in October. I’m destined to do something I haven’t done yet. Hopefully I can take and do something that’s gonna save someone else’s life," he told reporters. "I’m just a tough old bird."

Before two suspects (the intruder had an accomplice) were found and taken into custody, local schools were locked down while police looked for them. Two young men were later arrested in connection with the shooting and the break-in.

Baxter was treated and released by a local hospital.

Despite the fact that he’ll have to program a new cell phone, Baxter is taking it all in stride. Adds his wife, "He’s just a very lucky person. And he’s not done on this earth yet. That’s the way we see it."