A Brief Addendum to Our Craigslist Wedding Story

Lindsey Grad and Nick Hassell published their story about a blind Craigslist wedding date on The Hairpin earlier today. It’s a lovely account, but there was one moment that rightfully left people wondering: Nick had been in a sling that day because, he wrote rather casually, “I had recently been shot. With a shotgun. At close range. But that is a story for another day.” I asked him to send along the background at his convenience, and he did:

I was shot on December 29, 2007. Football fans might recall that date as the same evening the Patriots finished their perfect regular season with a win over the New York Giants, but I’m a Seahawks fan. My tragedy that night stood alone.

My best friend (let’s call him Jordan) and I were preparing a large batch of jello shots for whatever party we ended up going to on New Year’s Eve. Midway through the project, we somehow ran out of lime Jello mix before we ran out of tequila and — embodying our inner Lucille Bluths — decided that we didn’t want the booze to go bad. We finished the bottle and maybe a little bit more just in time to get an unpleasant phone call from Jordan’s girlfriend (let’s call her Eva), who was waiting patiently for her ride from the airport. Her ride from Jordan. That’s when all the trouble started.

Jordan explained the delicacy of the situation in as clear a manner as he was capable of at the time, and then he called a cab for Eva. This would have been a non-event had I the common courtesy to act as a Milford man should: to be neither seen, nor heard. I had no such courtesy, and, drunk, I forced Jordan into the quiet confines of his bedroom to complete the call.

I can’t recall how long he was in there but it must have seemed like an eternity from the living room, because I was overcome with an urge to pester Jordan. His door was locked, so I began knocking incessantly, wondering what it was he could be doing in there. Before too long, the door opened a smidge. I saw a quick burst of light, heard the fast crack of a tiny explosion just like fireworks, and I had my breath taken away.

Jordan, always a gun enthusiast, was typically as “responsible” as one can be while keeping a gun in his living quarters. He never kept the shotgun loaded. A few nights prior to our face-off, though, he’d loaded it, for some reason, and he’d never unloaded it. This was also one of the only times he had ignored the cardinal rule of gun ownership, which is, obviously, to never point a gun at someone unless you intend to shoot them. Jordan, drunk and confused, hadn’t intended to shoot me. But he did.

Jordan was observably panicked, but he was quick to respond when I reminded him that his priority ought to be to apply pressure to my open wound, slow the bleeding, and call emergency services. Rescue crews arrived on the scene within minutes, relieved Jordan of his first aid duties, detained him for questioning, and whisked me away to the nearest level one trauma center.

When I came to the next day I was in the ICU, with my parents at my side and a tube in my throat. The preliminary diagnosis was a collapsed lung, a hairline fracture to my collarbone, and a contusion to my brachial plexus, which is the cluster of nerves used to control one’s arm. My greatest concern at the time was exactly how long I had been unconscious, but it was difficult to communicate while intubated.

I ended up trying to trace the forms of letters on my mom’s palm, shaking or nodding if the letter she guessed was correct. We moved slowly. The first letter, R, she had mistaken first as a B, then a D, an E, an F, and finally a P. We’d improved significantly by the time we got through R-O-S-E-B and to the O that I was trying to draw out, but she still mistook that last O for a U. At that moment, my mom took a step back from the bed and gave me a look of anger I had seen only one other time before in my life, when I’d severely broken curfew in high school. She’d guessed that the word I was attempting to scrawl out on her palm was “ROSEBUD,” in some sort of sick attempt to make the greatest pop culture reference of my young life, and not “ROSEBOWL,” in an honest attempt to find out the score of the football game. I’d meant “ROSEBOWL,” of course.

I was, of course, simply and sincerely worried that I had missed the profound drubbing that USC had laid on the University of Illinois. I had myself the hardiest, most painful laugh I can remember.

Today I still have limited muscular response in my right arm. At the time of the shooting, the arm was completely paralyzed. It was 10 days before I was able to twitch my finger, a month before I could contract my tricep, and another seven months before there was muscular response in my bicep. In 2010 I cried tears of joy when I realized that I was washing dishes with my right hand, and in 2011 I scored a layup against a live defense in a pickup game of basketball.

Jordan and I are no longer friends, but for reasons unrelated to the shooting — and that, truly, is a story for another day.

Now you know.