Uber driver shot in drive-by says he’s blessed to be alive

Duane Johnson was able to drive to the hospital after being shot and having a tire blown out.

SPOKANE, Wash. — Duane Johnson is counting his blessings.

Blessed to be alive, for one.

“They almost lost me,” he says. “I lost two liters of blood and my vitals crashed.”

Johnson was driving a Christmas Eve Uber route when he and one of his passengers was shot in a drive-by.

“All I heard was pop, pop, pop,” he says.

He was driving four people on I-90 around 3:30 that morning, chatting like he usually does. He says he barely noticed the car pulling up next to his near the Thor-Freya exit.

He thought the popping sound was gravel hitting the car until he looked over and saw his shattered window held together by the tinting.

There was a bullet hole in the glass near his shoulder.

“I said, ‘Guys, we’ve been shot, we’ve been shot at.’ And at that moment, one of the guys in the back said, ‘My finger’s gone, my finger’s shot off,'” Johnson recalls.

One of Duane’s tires had also been shot out, though he says it didn’t really register as he continued driving on the interstate until he got off on the Division exit.

He says the only thing in his mind was getting his injured passenger to Providence Sacred Heart. He continued checking on his other passengers, while one of them gave the location to 911 operators.

“I didn’t know where that bullet had gone,” he says. “I asked him, ‘Are you hit?’ He said no.”

It wasn’t until he pulled up to the hospital entrance and was surrounded by police that he realized something was wrong.

“I didn’t know I’d been shot,” he says. “I had no sense of it.”

That’s where he adds another blessing to the count.

“At that moment I started praying and calling out to God to not leave me, be with me, hold me,” he says.

Blessed, again, that he was surrounded by officers to save him.

“They got down on the ground next to me and said, ‘Were you praying?’ I said yeah,” Johnson describes. “‘We’re gonna pray.’ They grabbed me, hugged me, started praying.”

The bullet hit his ribs, lung, and now sits lodged near his spine.

On Wednesday, after four days in the hospital, Johnson is recovering at home. He was greeted by friends and family outside his home. His doctor says after a couple weeks of rest, if he’s ready, he can go back to his full-time job.

Johnson says he likely won’t go back to Uber.

Spokane Police are investigating and Johnson says he’ll be meeting with a detective soon. SPD reports the other injured passenger is also expected to recover.

Johnson counts his blessings, like the signs that now fill his living room, including “Welcome Home Papa” and the Christmas gifts he’ll now get to unwrap. Though mostly he’s thankful for the life still ahead.

“Just an overwhelming feeling that this is the door closing on a tragic event,” he says. “I can keep walking down and I’m gonna recover from.”