Trauma nurses are calling the recovery of a federal agent who was shot fives times after being targeted while on his lunch break earlier this year a "Christmas Miracle."
Aviation Enforcement Agent Drew Stokes with U.S. Customs and Border Protection Air and Marine Operations was at a Publix supermarket in the Oakleaf community of Jacksonville on Sept. 27 in uniform when he was attacked, according to WJXT-TV.
He was walking back to his truck to return to his office on the base at Cecil Field when a man began yelling at him. "The suspect yelled, 'I blankin' hate cops,' and then he approached me from my back right side, so when I heard that, I knew it was going to be violence against a police officer. I knew what was coming and that's whenever he started shooting," Stokes said. "The bullets turned my body and then I turned and tried to draw my weapon."
The agent was struck once in the buttocks, in both legs and once in his left forearm.
"I immediately went to the ground, had my weapon out, and was waiting for him to come back around, and then that's when somebody came back and told me the threat had been eliminated," Stokes told the news station as he recalled the incident nearly three months later.
Officials said that following the shooter, the gunman, identified as 18-year-old Thomas Jacob Lewis, killed himself.
Stokes remembered the ride to the hospital and the thoughts that went through his head as he lay wounded.
"I was probably scared the most when I was riding in the ambulance on the way," he said. "I never thought at one point that I was going to die, but I didn't know what was going to happen."
Stokes wanted to thanks those who saved his life and made it possible for him to spend the holidays with his family.
"Whether it's a miracle, fate, God's hand, I think when everybody shows up, does their best and does what they're supposed to do as a high-level functioning trauma center, we can often have successful outcomes like Drew's was," Orange Park Medical Center Trauma Medical Director Dr. Jeff Levine told the news station.
Stokes not only credits the trauma team for getting him through, but also his wife, Amanda, his family, his co-workers and his own motivation to return to his passion of serving his country.
