This is the fifth in a series recounting close encounters with death by Jamaicans.

HE was shot five times, thought he would have bled to death, and had at one point virtually given up on life.

But bank teller and footballer Ewan Thomas is counting his lucky stars and praising God that he is strong enough, mentally and physically, to tell of the most horrific experience that changed his life for good.

Now, Thomas, 32, is on a mission to inspire and encourage youth in inner-city communities to turn away from crime, even though he had never gone that route.

He remembers the Sunday morning game of scrimmage, at the corner of Barry and Fleet streets in the volatile Southside community of Central Kingston, where he almost lost his life. Two other youngsters who were playing — one of them his cousin, Damion ‘Gary’ Coombs — were not so lucky. They died from a spray of Russian-made AK47 assault rifle bullets.

To this day, the motive is unclear, as it appeared that the men simply wanted to kill anybody who was on the corner. At the time, there was heightened tension between rival gangs in the area.

“I remember eating callaloo for breakfast and I said to myself, ‘I feel strong’,” Thomas, who was 19 at the time of the incident, told the Sunday Observer.

“Four of us were playing. The ball drifted towards the corner and to my surprise, this car came around, four doors opened and men with AK47s started spraying us with bullets,” he said.

“I was directly behind one of the guys who died. It was like divine intervention. It’s like God told me ‘stop’, because the exact spot that the guy died, that’s where I was going. I even saw when he took his last breath,” Thomas related.

“The ball was rolling down the road and he just cut in front of me and got the fatal bullet which I would have got had he not cut in front of me. He was the first one to die.”

Though shocked by the experience, Thomas’ natural human instinct of self-preservation took charge of the former Kingston Technical High School (KTHS) Manning Cup footballer, and his many hours invested in speed training were called into action.

“I just had to run,” he said. “I was looking straight at them, so I bent down and ran off in one motion, because if I were erect I would have been [an] easy target.”

He later learnt that two other cars with gunmen were standing by, but the killers didn’t fire on Thomas and his friends.

All four football players were, however, hit, and the other who survived along with Thomas now walks with a limp; his knee damaged.

“When the first guy died and I started to run, I fell behind him and got up and moved again,” Thomas recalled. “The men started to run after me. So in my mind, I said I am going to the police station.”

He said that when he got close to the police station, the cops there stood looking at him, even though the gunmen were still chasing and shooting at him.

“The police said they thought that I was a gunman, or gang member. When I got to the station I realised that there was blood on me. It was then I realised, too, that I was shot,” he said.

“A crowd started gathering in the station and I had to tell them I needed some breeze, and I remember a jeep parked outside the station, so I said to the police guy, ‘what is going on, you don’t see me bleeding?” recounted Thomas.

The age-old problem of broken down police vehicles made Thomas feel that his days on earth were numbered, as initial efforts to get the service vehicle moving to take him to the nearby Kingston Public Hospital (KPH) failed — until a good Samaritan came by.

“When they went to the jeep, it couldn’t start. So after several tries, a guy from the area who knew mechanic work came, did something and eventually the jeep started,” said Thomas.

“So while we were there in the vehicle taking me to KPH, I asked the policemen to turn on the siren so that we could move faster, because the blood was running profusely. But the siren was not working. I started getting weak. I was losing a lot of blood… something flashed before my eyes and I said, ‘this is it now, I am going to die’. But by the help of God, I survived.

“When I got to the hospital they took a while to attend to me, I thought because they felt I was a gunman who had been shot by the police,” he said.

“At the time I was a part of the Central Kingston committee called Learning Institute of Central Kingston (LICK) which was governed by GraceKennedy, so people like Douglas Orane knew me, so this guy who worked there recognised me, came in and said to the medical staff, ‘assist him… he is no gunman’, and that’s when the doctor started giving me attention. Eventually I was there for about two days and I learned after that my cousin, who had also been taken there, had died. They kept telling me that he was all right when I asked for him,” said the father of a son and daughter.

He said that during the time he spent in hospital, men visited him, asking if he knew of the incident.

“I didn’t know who they were, so I told them nothing,” he said.

Of the five shots that he received, two hit him in his back, one went through his hand and the others grazed his head, one of which stands out like an elaborate scrape inflicted by a barber’s sharp razor.

There has still been no confirmation that police ever held any of the shooters.

The incident forced his mother, Paulette Bennett, now deceased, to move him from the area place him with relatives in another Kingston community. However, he still goes to Southside to reason with the youth.

“People there respect me because of my determination and how I look at life,” he stated.

“All the times I went back I was gripped with fear that something else would happen. My friends would ask me ‘why you go back there?’, but I said that there were also a lot of good people living there.

“I rap with the youth and tell them that they don’t have to be gunmen to get respect. I use my experience to inspire other youth in the community.

“Experience has taught me to keep focused, no matter what obstacles may emerge. My philosophy is ‘try, then fail, but don’t fail to try’.

“People still sympathise with me. Even at the bank they say, ‘oh is him did get shot, him focused’. They can use me as an example of what survival is all about,” he said.

That incident was not the first time that he had come close to danger in Central Kingston.

A year before, a group of gunmen pointed their weapons at him during an ongoing feud between men from the People’s National Party-dominated Tel Aviv community, and Southside, an area with strong loyalty to the Jamaica Labour Party.

Eventually, one of the gunmen recognised him as a member of the Leebert Halliman-coached KTHS Manning Cup squad and gave him the all-clear to pass. The incident affected his ability to concentrate on upcoming examinations, he said.

Another time, two men pulled guns and tried to shoot at him, but the guns misfired.

Still, one of the more

telling experiences of his life occurred in 1991 when seven people were slaughtered at a wake in the Falcon section of Seaview Gardens.

“I was there, but I had just left the house,” he explained. “A ‘nine-night’ was held for Demus, whose house I used to go to, but while there it was getting late and my uncle said ‘you need to go down to your house and go to bed’. I left right away and before I could reach my house I heard a barrage of gunshots and heard that seven people had been murdered,” Thomas said.

For years, the bloody Sunday morning attack in which Thomas was shot affected him to the point where when it came time for him to interview for a job he missed the interview.

“I was playing for Santos Football Club at the time and my coach Carlton (Spanner) Dennis, saw the potential I had.

“I was due to attend an interview at National Commercial Bank, Half-Way-Tree and I just could not go because of what they did to my cousin and me, although Dennis kept encouraging me that I should,” Thomas explained.

He said that after he missed the first interview, another one was arranged and Dennis kept pushing him, telling him that he had the potential.

“I went and did the interview and was successful,” he said. “I spent six years at NCB, went to Canada on a football trial for six months at Concordia University in Montreal, but decided to return home to do further studies, as I would have to spend an extra two years to complete a degree there than if I stayed in Jamaica.

“Mr (Livingston) Morrison, the deputy governor of the Bank of Jamaica, who was also a member of Santos, also encouraged me all the way and when I returned to Jamaica in the latter part of 2007, I started working at BOJ and now I am on staff.”

Now, the second-year degree student in business administration at Excelsior Community College is also improving himself spiritually and worships at a Pentecostal Church near to his present residence.

With all the close shaves in his life, Thomas has got over the nervousness that dogged him for years.

From a time when he would freak out if he heard firecrackers, Thomas has regained the calm demeanour that he said he got from father Norman, a fisherman and awning maker who still lives in Seaview Gardens.

His focus, now that he has got a new lease on life, is to improve the lives of his children, and continue to upgrade himself at the BOJ, an institution which he said has done a lot for his personal development, thanks to the friendly and co-operative staff that he interacts with daily.