The year was 1974 and 21 year-old Tom Piszkin was a happy camper, going to school at UC Berkeley and working in the sporting good department at Montgomery Wards in Oakland. After finishing work on October 24th, he put on his first new [polyester] suit and packed up and got ready to fly down to his hometown of San Diego and wow his parents and all his buddies at his high school "home coming" the next evening. He was a man on the move. He had a good job, a new suit and money in his pocket.

As he left the bus he had been riding on, he glanced quickly at his watch. It was 8:30pm. He would have a few minutes to kill before the next [connecting] one arrived. He sat down on a bench at the bus stop near the Oakland Coliseum, not what you would call the best neighborhood on the face of the earth. He was alone for a moment, but then he was joined at the bench by four youngsters, all appearing to be 16 or 17 years old.

"One sat on top of the bench and said, "Hey buddy, you waiting for the bus?" remembered Piszkin. "Then three of the four took out handguns."

One assailant held his .38 special directly against Piszkin's chest, one on his leg and another pressed his gun against the side of Piszkin's head. "I couldn't move", remembered Piszkin. "My thought was that it was time to cash in my chips, and that I was going to be checking out."

The leader, [the guy with his gun on Piszkin's chest] spoke quickly and without emotion: "We want everything you have."

Everything happened so quickly that Piszkin was still sitting in the same position as when the four arrived. He was sitting casually, stunned, on the bench, still using his suitcase as an armrest.

"One kid started to take my watch off", said Piszkin, "while another was trying to get the wallet out of my pocket." Piszkin paused momentarily. "He was having trouble with the button on my hip pocket."

The next scene is one that Piszkin has replayed in slow motion hundreds of times since. He still can't explain exactly what happened. Panic is one answer. Maybe it was the senses just working as they should. "I slowly stood up to make it easier for them to get my wallet," Piszkin recalled. "The gun was right there, right at sternum level. The leader told me to sit back down. I guess I didn't sit down soon enough. He shot me."

The four assailants took Piszkin's wallet and watch and ran. Piszkin was confused. He'd had no intention in causing any problems. All he wanted was for them to take his money and go. Now he was no longer a young soon-to-be successful business man. He was a young soon-to-be successful business man with a hole in his chest. "there were no stars and it definitely wasn't the worst pain I'd ever felt. It did knock me back a bit though."

By the time he turned around his attackers were long gone. His first clue that something was wrong came with his first bloody exhale. "When I saw [and felt] the blood," he said, "I knew I was in trouble."

The bus stop was located directly in front of a gas station and he heard the attendant mutter, "Oh my God... they shot the guy!" Piszkin then staggered over to the pumps and laid there on the ground face down.

"I wasn't in a lot of pain," he recalled. "I remembered feeling warm inside. Then a big crowd gathered and the police arrived. Since I was lying on my stomach, they couldn't tell how seriously I was injured, and no one wanted to move me. They did put a blanket over me to keep me warm. Then one of the policeman started to pull it over my head. I said, 'Hey, I'm not dead yet!'"

Not by a long shot. Tom Piszkin spent five hours in the operating room as the doctors searched for the bullet fragments. It's hard to say that anyone getting shot is a lucky man. But Piszkin will be the first to admit that someone must have been looking out for him that evening.

"The doctors told me that it's very unusual to get shot is the middle of the chest with a .38 special and still be around to talk about it," said Piszkin. "The fact that the gun was pressed right up against my chest meant that it was a cleaner wound. If the gunman has been standing a little further away, the bullet would have done a lot more damage. As it was, the bullet just grazed the aorta at a location that caused me to lose my voice for [six] months. Luckily the bullet hit square on my fifth rib and didn't go any further."

If the bullet had missed the rib, there is a good chance that it would have proceeded out the other side of Piszkin's body, leaving another [larger] hole and meaning even more blood loss. All in all, Tom Piszkin was indeed a lucky man. Within a week he was out of the hospital and a month later he ran a 30 minute 5K. Since then he has gotten heavily into triathlon and is one of the movers and shakers of the Triathlon Club of San Diego.

The experience is one that Tom will take with him wherever he goes. He remembers his younger sisters taking his tie with bullet hole to school for show and tell. He learned a valuable lesson that evening in Oakland: There are no guarantees in life.

"I am not as uptight as I was," Piszkin said. "I know that my life can end any time. I'm just thankful to be alive."

Four years later, in 1978, Tom Piszkin returned to that bus stop in Oakland. "I drove up in my new red Porsche and had a picture taken with me on the bench and the 911S Targa in the background." As he sat back down on the bench Piszkin was able to put some closure to the tragedy once and for all. He'd been shot, but he was able to deal with it. The fragments of lead in his chest had only served to make him stronger, to make him even more obsessed with living life all out.