i was shot 15 time...

NAIROBI, Kenya, Sept 15 – “I was shot 15
times; one bullet whizzed past my left eye
grazing my skin. Three of the bullets were
aimed at my heart but they missed. Another
hit me on the back but luckily it failed to hit
my spine,” recalls Sergeant Moses Emojong
who incredibly escaped death at Westgate a
year ago.
At the end of the mayhem, 67 people lay
dead, and scores of other suffered life-long
wounds, among them Emojong.
Emojong explains that he and fellow officers
from the Nairobi West Administration Police
headquarters rushed to Westgate after
receiving a phone call that there was a robbery
in one of the banks.
“It was heading towards noon when we
received information that there were robbers at
Westgate… the information was scanty. But we
organised ourselves very fast and went there.
But on arrival, things were different. When we
reached the upper parking bay, we found many
people dead. We were the first respondents to
reach there; what we saw was gruesome. There
were dead people all over; both young and the
old. That is when we knew something unusual
was going on,” Emojong recalls.
“I personally saw a kid who was lying there and
was alive, I carried the kid as I ran down from
the parking and I handed him over to one of
the Red Cross people.”
When he went back, the officers positioned
themselves strategically but it didn’t’ take long
before the first bullet hit him.
“I just realised I had been shot on my hand
and my rifle fell down, so when I was crawling
to pick my rifle, I was shot again several times.
But God stood with me. After sometime, I
realised I was still alive. I tried to raise my
head but I wasn’t in a position to do that, so I
lay down again. When I wiped sweat from my
face, I realised I was bleeding. I had been shot
near my left eye.”
He remembers looking left and seeing a
colleague lying dead. There was another dead
person to his right.
“I tried my best to crawl out slowly. I took
sometime before I got out. When I managed to
escape, the first person I saw was my boss, I
told him, please sir just have this rifle and
please get hold of me and put me in the
ambulance and take me to hospital.”
He regained consciousness three days later to
some voices. “I can now go and rest. This man
is now safe.” The voice was that of his doctor.
“That is when I realised I had made it out
alive.”
He however learnt that his right leg was
completely shattered.
“I met God on that day. Trust in God and live
in God and you will always see that God will
appear and He will always be with you,” he
said.
Inspired by the story of Job in the bible,
Emojong says; “God stood in the gap. No bullet
entered my heart or my spine. There is
something special that God has planned for
me. I pray every day I would want God to
reveal it to me so that I can perform. For this
reason, I say I will always fire I will never get
tired till I achieve what God wants me to
achieve.”
Emojong is a living testimony that many
‘doubting Thomases’ like myself couldn’t
believe that he was actually shot 15 times and
survived until I saw him and saw the 15 bullet
wounds.
He has undergone over 10 surgeries and he is
yet to recover fully.
“It’s been very expensive. I went for surgery
every two to three days. They (doctors at Aga
Khan Hospital) have made me a human being, I
had already given up but once I landed at Aga
Khan they made me a human being. I have had
surgeries on my leg, chest, I had bone
grafting… alone I would not have made it,” he
says as he also thanked Kenya Red cross for
paying his bills and giving him psychosocial
support in what he calls ‘living a second life’.
Others who have personally interacted with him
describe his survival as a miracle.
Red Cross Secretary General Abbas Gullet is
one of the people who are not just walking with
Emojong in his journey of recovery but has now
become his friend.
“Moses has 15 bullets in the body yet this
person is today walking again, it’s just
miraculous and we cannot thank God the
Almighty better. This is just amazing that he is
alive, that is when you realise there is a
mighty creator out there. When the hazard
comes, you get many bullets on your body but
you can still stand up,” Gullet says.
It has been a tough journey of pain and
suffering, but also a journey that has
completely transformed Emojong and brought
him closer to his creator.
Despite the suffering Emojong pledges that the
attack will not deter him from his duty of
defending Kenya and her people.
For him, joining the security forces was a dream
right from his childhood.
“It’s my humble prayer everyday that I get
well. I believe God will restore me back to my
normal status. Though I will not be exactly the
way I was, I will ensure that I will always
protect Kenya,” he pledges.
On August 30, almost a year after the attack he
went to his home in Teso to celebrate his
healing.

Inspiring indeed,…