Cop cheats death - Shot five times but continues to fight crime

Few people expected Detective Corporal Cliff Coleman to be alive today. Shot five times and presumed dead, he is today strongly determined to fight crime till his last breath.

Coming under attack from gunmen more times than he can count during his near-24 years as a member of the Jamaica Constabulary Force, he always told himself, "Whenever I get shot, I am going to survive. I don't believe that any guy is supposed to kill me."

It must have been this belief that miraculously saved him on September 5, 2005.

A detective at the Bridgeport Police Station in Portmore, St Catherine, Coleman left the station that afternoon to follow up on a case in Greater Portmore.

On exiting the vehicle, he heard a voice behind him say, "Don't move!"

"I turned my head to the side and saw a guy with a gun not more than 10 feet away from me," he remembered.

"Before I could reach for my gun, he fired, and the whole place started to echo. I saw blood coming through my mouth."

The gunman fired two shots that went through one jaw then the next, followed by a third that hit him in the left side of the head and was lodged in his brain. A fourth bullet went through his neck.

Coleman almost fell to the ground but, amazingly, still in control of his faculties, he regained his balance, reached for his gun and fired. The gunman ran around the car and fired again, hitting him a fifth time in the upper right thigh.

The officer fired a few more rounds and the gunman fled.

"I know I shot him twice, but I was bleeding so much I was just trying to keep alive to reach the hospital. My aim was to just keep him off," Coleman said.

Adrenaline kicked in

For some reason, his adrenaline kicked into overdrive and he found himself extremely energised and more alert than ever before.

"I don't know what it is, but I felt this rush of excitement. Someone took me to the Spanish Town Hospital and, on my way there, I called the station to tell them what had happened. I even had to use my gun to fire a few shots to get the vehicles to clear the way to get to the hospital," he recalled.

He remembered while in the vehicle blood started to ooze through his nose and his lungs started to fill up, "but I was just trying my best to reach the hospital".

Coleman recalled having a brief blackout at the hospital, regaining consciousness a short while later in the emergency room.

"I remember the doctors saying, 'Cliff, wake up. We are going to lose you'. I looked and police were all around me and the doctor was cutting my throat to put a tube down there," he said.

Further complications

After hours of surgery, the doctors could not remove all the bullet fragments from his brain and his trachea was damaged. Later, he was transferred to the Kingston Public Hospital. During his two-and-a-half-week stay he developed pneumonia and could no longer breathe on his own. The doctors told his common-law partner that it was unlikely he would survive.

But that adrenaline overdrive, which gripped him each time he was faced with a volatile situation, kept him on a constant high. Death was not an option.

"Everyone was amazed that I recovered. Even after that, the doctors said I would not be able to speak because my trachea was damaged," he shared with The Sunday Gleaner in a strong voice.

Six years later, Coleman is almost 100 per cent recovered, but his nerves were greatly affected.

"The gunshot that I got through the neck is giving me hell. It makes me have nerves problems, severe headaches. It is really taking a toll on my life, not giving me the opportunity to be at the forefront of crime fighting, where I want to be and know I belong," he uttered.

Now stationed at the Traffic Headquarters in Kingston, that near-death experience has not daunted the 42-year-old's resolve in doing his duty to serve and protect.

He said the experience has made him tougher and more determined to go after criminals. It has also served to make him even more alert than before.

"I get my joy from protecting and serving and ridding the country of criminal elements, and I will never stop," shared the cop, who is admired for always going beyond the call of duty to assist.

"There is nothing else I can do, there is nothing else for me to do. That is what I was trained to do. My belief is that once you become a police officer, you are never off duty."

anastasia.cunningham@gleanerjm.com