New Haven man survives when lunchbox stops bullets

NEW HAVEN, Conn.—Carlos Juarez figures his lunchbox saved his life.

The 31-year-old immigrant from Ecuador was waiting for his ride to work shortly after 4 a.m. Tuesday in his driveway when two would-be robbers accosted him, demanding money. Juarez said he had no money and the men opened fire, hitting him twice in the side.

Juarez, whose story was first reported Wednesday by the New Haven Register, said he reflexively held up his lunch cooler over his chest to shield himself from the bullets. The cooler was hit twice.

"He thinks the cooler saved his life," Carlos Paz, a friend who translated for Juarez, told The Associated Press. "If he doesn't have the cooler, the shots come maybe in the heart."

After Juarez was shot, he managed to climb the stairs of the apartment building with the cooler still in his hand.

"Carlos, I got shot," he told his friend.

Paz said at first he didn't believe it, but then saw the blood on his friend's side and called police.

Juarez, who was released from the hospital after treatment, says doctors have been unable to remove two bullets from his side because of swelling. He also had a cut on his forehead that he suffered when one of the men hit him with what he thinks was a bat as Juarez reached for the cooler.

Juarez "was very happy" to have survived the shooting, his friend said.

"He wanted to hit the guys with the cooler," Paz said.

Juarez still has one of the bullets that was in the cooler and a lunch container of rice and meat that has a bullet hole, as does a package of gum that also was in the cooler.

Juarez, who came to the United States about five years ago, works for a concrete flooring company. He says he'll stay in New Haven for now, but eventually hopes to move.

No arrests had been made Wednesday.