Derek Winemiller

Derek Winemiller saved a man from assault, Kansas City, Missouri, February 9, 2020. A neighborhood store owner was behind the counter when a man entered and pointed a handgun at him, demanding cash and cigarettes. Winemiller, 38, union carpenter, was a customer in the store. Winemiller stood about 15 feet from the store’s front entrance as he observed the armed man, who entered the store with a second man police believed to be his accomplice, confront the owner with the weapon. Winemiller, believing the store owner’s life was in danger, turned to confront the gunman, pushed him back against a wall and held the man’s arm aloft, with the gun pointed toward the ceiling. Somehow, the assailant was able to free his gun and Winemiller was then shot several times, mostly in the torso, during the brief struggle. The assailant and his accomplice then ran out of the store and have never been identified. A customer near the front door was shot once in the leg. The store owner was not injured. The wounded customer recovered. Winemiller was hospitalized nineteen days and underwent emergency surgery for wounds that injured his bowels, bruised his heart, and fractured his ribs, pelvic bone and scapula. Winemiller’s thoracic vertebrae and spinal cord were also injured, leaving him paralyzed from the chest down.