Taking A Bullet For A Stranger

With a bullet still lodged in his chest, but a smile on his face, 26-year-old Matt Casias was honored with the governor's Medal of Valor.

Rick Sallinger, from the CBS Denver station KCNC, reports Casias, American Hero story.

It was October of last year outside his office when he saw a youth reaching for a woman's handbag.

Casias recalls, "He went behind her, grabbed her, tried to take her purse. That's when I got up out of my desk and I went outside to help her out."

Brynda Turner had just visited an art gallery and was walking to her car when the mugger attacked.

"And I said, No, no, no," Turner says, "Then he showed me a gun. Then I shut my eyes; then, all of a sudden, I was on the ground."

Casias continues, "So I came outside and got the guy off of her, held him against the car. That's when he pulled out a gun and shot me point blank in the chest."

He then stumbled into his office.

Casias co-worker, Bette Phelps says, "When the door opened, he said call 911."

An ambulance rushed to the scene as Casias lay on the floor of his new printing business thinking, "All this material stuff doesn't mean anything; all the hours I work; all this hard work; it's the relationships in your life the friends and your family and the people that are close to you - that's the only thing that matters at a time like that."

Police arrested companions of the mugger, but the actual gunman got away. Casias was taken to the emergency room.

Sallinger points out after coming to the aid of a stranger Casias ended up with a bullet in his chest and thousands of dollars in medical bills. Then it was the turn of strangers to come to his aid.

Art galleries held an auction to help pay his bills. Radio stations and the Guardian Angels raised and donated money.

Casias says, "It's hard for me still to this day to grasp the amount of people who came to my aid with cards and donations for the fund to help pay for my medical bills."

Coming to the aid of others is not something new for Casias. He runs a boxing program for disadvantaged youths. It's his way of trying to prevent what happend to him. When he was a teenager he was arrested in front of his mother for posession of a handgun.

"I never want to see that look on her face again," Casias says. "I tell you what happened, back then was tears of sadness; now, it's tears of joy."

But knowing now that he almost lost his life for a total stranger with no money in her purse, would he do it again?

He says, "Especially, after seeing all the support I got, you got to believe there's a lot of other people out there - I would have done the same thing."

Or would they? Brynda Turner, the woman whose aid he came to, has her doubts.

"I think Matt Casias's are rare," Turner says asserting Casias is a hero, "A definite hero and certainly a good samaritan."

There was no shortage of praise as he was awarded the Medal Of Valor

Gov. Bill Owens-(R) Colorado says, ''Not simply for his actions in saving Brenda, but for all he does for his family and his community. He's an example for all of us."

Matt Casias ended up with more than a bullet in his chest. He has earned the admiration of an entire state.

Casias will undergo surgery next month to remove the bullet from his chest.