GWINNETT COUNTY, Ga. — A man went out to watch an NBA playoff game with friends at a Gwinnett County bar and ended up on the ground with a bullet in his neck, fighting to stay alive as a stranger drove off, police say.
Shaun Outar was standing on the patio at Moonshiners in Grayson last Friday, watching the game with friends, when he noticed two men fighting in the parking lot. He had no idea who they were and no reason to think the night would turn dangerous.
“You think you could just go out, watch a game, talk with your friends and things like this don’t happen around here,” Outar said.
The fight broke up and the men went their separate ways. Outar turned back to his friends, thinking it was over.
“The next thing we know I heard a pop,” he said. “I looked down and noticed that blood was coming from my neck and I fell.”
A round had torn through his neck and broken a bone in his spine. As he lay bleeding on the patio, a waitress dropped down beside him and pressed towels to the wound.
“I was told that her slowing down the blood loss really was helpful for me and my situation,” Outar said.
As the blood drained and his body started to give out, his first thought was his wife.
“I had to notify my wife because she was the one that I thought that would be able to do whatever needed to be done,” Outar said. “Because I knew I was not in a good way.”
Doctors later told him how close he came.
“I mean, millimeters from being paralyzed for life or even worse,” Outar said. ”My carotid vein was nicked, so there’s a lot of alternate scenarios that could have happened other than us talking right now.”
Gwinnett County police say the shooter was 34-year-old Steven Brown, who they say climbed into a pickup truck and fired back toward the business as he drove off. Officers arrested Brown the same day and say he is a convicted felon.
A search of his home turned up three guns, one of them stolen, according to police. He remains in the Gwinnett County jail while he is held without bond.
Outar is set to start rehab soon, working to close a hand that still won’t make a fist, grateful to be alive.
“You live to fight another day,” he said. “But when you start taking firearms out, you ruin everybody’s lives, including yours as the person using the gun.”
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