Feb. 15--MOUNT GILEAD, Ohio -- Brandon Moore has long been passionate about two things: law enforcement and his evangelical Christian faith.
He was training to be a minister when he felt called to become a cop.
On the day he almost lost his life trying to uphold the law, his faith helped him survive.
Now, more than two years after the gunfight that nearly killed him, Moore has traded his badge for a Bible.
Moore's knees hurt when he runs because of his injuries from the shootout on Oct. 21, 2010. He lost an inch and a half from his left leg. His toes don't bend.
"I can't sprint," he said. "I wouldn't be good backup for another deputy in an emergency."
Instead, he is finishing the college degree he abandoned when he decided to become a law-enforcement officer and is working on a book about his experiences. Moore, 35, has considered becoming a minister.
His faith, he believes, kept him alive when a rural marijuana grower opened fire on him. That afternoon, as bullets flew toward him, Moore remembers the chaos in his brain clearing away to allow two thoughts:
"In 30 seconds, I am probably going to be dead."
And then: "I'm OK with it."
He felt comforted, he said, because he was proud of the way he'd lived.
And he felt right with his God, so he believed he would have an afterlife.
"In that moment, if you're wallowing in self-pity because you didn't tell your wife you loved her before you walked out the door, shame on you for not getting that right beforehand," he said. " Because tomorrow's not promised."
Moore survived the shootout; the man convicted of shooting him, Shane Roush, is serving 25 years in prison.But Moore's body will never be the same.
In all, Roush fired 42 rounds that day, mostly at Moore.
One bullet ripped through his groin. Another pierced his bulletproof vest and hit a rib, sending bone fragments into his spleen. A third bullet hit the back of his left leg, slamming into his femur. And a fourth coursed through the top of his left foot, shattering the bones that made up his toes.
His injuries kept him out of work for a year, then at a desk job for about another year before he realized his body simply wouldn't let him be a deputy anymore.
So he stepped down after 10 years on the job, taking a police pension and a 50 percent pay cut.
The Morrow County sheriff's office is small, with 11 deputies, so anytime someone leaves, they are missed, said Sheriff Steven Brenneman. But Moore's retirement was particularly emotional.
"I guess I can say we kind of had a little bit of an innocence here for a long time, because we'd never gone through (an officer being shot) here. And with him, that was taken away," Brenneman said. "It's affected us all."
Moore has forgiven Roush, though he believes Roush should serve his full prison sentence.
"I've got a damaged body, but I've got how many more years to watch my kids grow up," he said. " I've got how many more years to love my wife."
@larenschield
Copyright 2013 - The Columbus Dispatch, Ohio
