HOUSTON: Time magazine has honored Ian Grillot, the American who took a bullet for an Indian techie while trying to intervene during a racially-motivated shooting in Kansas early this year.
Grillot, then 24, was injured while trying to intervene in the shooting by a Navy veteran that killed 32-year-old Indian techie, Srinivas Kuchibhotla and left his colleague Alok Madasani, critically injured.
The Navy veteran targeted the Indians at a bar in Olathe, Kansas, in February.
Grillot’s name features in the magazine among “5 Heroes Who Gave Us Hope in 2017.”
“I wouldn’t have been able to live with myself if I didn’t do anything,” Grillot said in an article posted by Time on Thursday. The magazine saluted the Kansas man as the “bargoer who stepped into the line of fire.”
“Without all the prayers and positive support from everybody, I wouldn’t be doing as well as I am right now. It has been a wonderful year and a blessing to be alive,” Grillot told PTI.
Earlier this year, Grillot was honored as ‘A True American Hero’ by the Indian-American community in Houston which raised USD 100,000 to help him buy a house in his hometown Kansas.
Grillot was watching a televised basketball game at the restaurant when a gunman approached Srinivas and Alok, both 32, and reportedly told them to “get out of my country.”
Grillot was shot in the chest in an attempt to keep the assailant from harming others.
Adam Purinton of Olathe has been charged with first- degree murder and attempted murder in the assaults.
Others saluted by Time included a chef who fed Hurricane Maria victims in Puerto Rico, Houston neighbors who aided a woman having a baby in the aftermath of Hurricane Harvey, and a California dog who refused to leave behind livestock he was guarding as wildfires raged.-PTI
Thank You For Your Vote!
Sorry You have Already Voted!
