A taxi driver who was injured in a shooting in Drogheda last night has said he nearly brought his daughter in the car with him.
John Myles was not the intended target of the attack on the Bridge of Peace in Drogheda shortly after 6PM.
He said he was hit after the shooter took aim at his passenger.
He was taken to hospital with non-life-threatening injuries and was released in the early hours of this morning.
Speaking to LMFM today, he said the gunman pulled the trigger after his passenger jumped across him to get out of the car.
He said bullet hit him in the back and went, “down through in one way and out the other way.”
“Lucky enough it didn’t lodge in my back,” he said.
“If it had of went a little bit further, I would have been paralysed for the rest of my life and if I hadn’t of turned, I would have been killed.
“My kids would have been planning my funeral.”
He called for an end to the gang violence in the town, warning that: “These people think they can what they like, when they like to people.”
“I did nothing wrong on anybody,” he said. “I picked up a lad and I end up getting shot while he gets out and runs like the coward he is.”
“It is me that is shot. It is me that is suffering now and it is me that has to explain to my kids what happened and how it happened.
“My daughter won’t go to school now because she is panicking.”
He said his daughter could easily have been with him in the car.
“I was going to bring my daughter last night with me because she comes out to me on a Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday,” he said.
“I said no, I’ll come back around and collect you. She could have been in that car and that’s what is in my head the whole time.”
He said he is now faced with having to clear his name while also recovering from injury.
“I have done nothing wrong, only went out and did a day’s work at 7am yesterday morning and I am here today, lucky to be here today, trying to clear my name because of something I did’t do.
“I only picked up a customer.”
The Garda investigation into the shooting is ongoing.
