THE NAVY SEAL WHO WAS SHOT 27 TIMES (AND SURVIVED)

On the night of 6 April 2007, Navy SEAL Sr. Chief Mike Day was drawn into a brutal firefight with several insurgents when he went into an uncleared room as the first man of his team. He entered the 12 x 12 m room during a routine operation against enemy high-value targets near Fallujah, Iraq, and came under fire immediately. Day was hit 27 times: 11 rounds were stopped by his body armor, 16 went into his body and left him with life-threatening wounds.

“As I stepped through the doorway, they all opened fire on me. It felt like someone was beating me with a sledgehammer,” Day said. A grenade then went off only three meters from him and knocked him unconscious. When he came to about a minute later, he managed to kill two of the insurgents with his pistol.

“Once I worked out that I had been shot, I said: ‘God, get me home to my girls.’ That was my first prayer, my first real prayer to God.” When the fighting finally stopped, Mike Day cleared the rest of the house and got six women and children out, then walked to the helicopter waiting outside under his own power and was flown to safety.

“People hear my story and they cannot believe it. I was there and I cannot believe it,” Day said. “I was shot in both legs and both arms, my left thumb was almost amputated, I was shot in the stomach and had a colostomy bag for a year, my right shoulder blade was shattered, I was shot twice in the buttocks and once in the scrotum, and my body armor was hit several times, which caused broken ribs and a bruised lung.”

Recovery was long and painful; it took Mike almost two years to heal physically from his injuries. In the first two weeks after he was shot he lost 25 kg of body weight. Pain and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) still trouble him today.

Author’s note: if you like our articles, you can support us with a purchase in our shop (click here). We’re grateful for every bit of support!