Dick Fürari

Jerry was waiting for a bus after work when a stranger walked up and shot him in the face with a shotgun. Random attack. No reason. He woke up two months later in a hospital with his front brain removed, screws in his skull, skin grafted from his leg onto his face. Lost his apartment. Ended up homeless on Skid Row. Never stopped smiling. Died in 2020 when his lungs gave out. In the video below Jerry sits down with photographer Mark Laita for Soft White Underbelly on Skid Row - where he'd been sleeping outside since losing everything - and talks through what happened with a calm that's hard to watch. He said the doctor told him something strange. Said the shot was so close that it actually saved him. Any further away and his head would have been all over the street. He said he can't see properly out of his left eye. Can't smell or breathe through his nose at all. Said he hadn't looked at himself in a mirror in over two years. Before the shooting he was making airplane parts at a machine shop. Had his own apartment. A normal life. Gone in one second at a bus stop. He was asked if he was bitter. Said no. Said he has every excuse in the world to be down. Just doesn't use it. Said he can't stop living now. Does a man who gets shot in the face by a stranger, loses his home, loses his brain and still wakes up grateful have something most people with everything intact will never understand?