New Testament Takes 2 Bullets for Bus Driver

Cops say "some kind of intervention" saved a bus driver in Dayton, Ohio, who was shot three times in an apparently random attack yesterday. Ricky Wagoner, 49, had a religious text called "The Message"—a modern translation of the New Testament—in his front pocket, which stopped two bullets fired into his chest, the Dayton Daily News reports. He was stabbed in the arm and shot in the leg as he scuffled with the three attackers but his injuries are not life-threatening.

Wagoner "fought for his life" when he was attacked while trying to repair his bus, stabbing one attacker with a pen and firing the dropped gun after them as they fled, police say. "I've been hit in the leg," Wagoner told an emergency dispatcher after the attack. "My chest feels like I've been hit with a sledgehammer." He told investigators that he believes the attack was some kind of gang initiation because he heard one of the teenage suspects tell another to kill him "if you want to be all the way in the club" and use a slang term for a black-on-white attack, the Springfield News-Sun reports. (More Bible stories.)