Pharmacist tells parents of Yemen attack
An American pharmacist has told his parents he was sure he was going to die when a gunman stormed the hospital where he worked in Yemen.
Don Caswell, 49, was shot three times in the stomach by the attacker, identified as 30-year-old Abed Abdul Razak Kamel. Three other American missionaries were killed.
After surviving emergency surgery he called his parents in Texas to tell them about the moment he came face to face with the shooter.
He said he opened the pharmacy door after hearing gunshots and confronted the attacker, who looked at Caswell and immediately started shooting.
He was hit twice in the abdomen and started backing into the pharmacy, but the gunman came in and shot him once more, his mother Mary Caswell said.
The gunman then pointed the weapon and appeared to pull the trigger twice more. Mary Caswell said her son heard two clicks and thought “this was it”.
But the gun did not fire and security guards tackled the suspect to the floor. The shooter never said a word to Caswell during the attack, his mother said. The doctor who performed the surgery was amazed all three bullets missed major organs, she said.
The gunman, described by Yemeni officials as a Muslim militant, has been in custody since the attack at the Southern Baptist hospital in the southeast town of Jibla.
