“It was one bad day. Tomorrow will be better.” Those are the words that Officer Jared MacDonald and his family have lived by since the 17-year veteran of the Bourne (Mass.) Police Department was shot in the back earlier this month by a gunman armed with three rifles and a handgun.
Those were the same words MacDonald said to his wife, Kerry, when she rushed into Rhode Island Hospital, visibly distraught.
“You just never know what you’re going to run into,” MacDonald, 44, told the Boston Globe while in a wheelchair with his wife and family around him.
This call came shortly before 3 a.m. on Feb. 5. Two women had been shot, one fatally, in a home invasion at Sea Watch Village, a secluded complex in Bourne. MacDonald was on patrol on the other side of town.
Authorities say that Adrian Loya, a 31-year-old Coast Guardsman, unleashed a hail of gunfire on police when they arrived, striking MacDonald below his bulletproof vest, in what authorities described as a well-planned attack.
The bullet struck MacDonald in the back and traveled through his abdomen, injuring his spine, kidney, and liver.
He spends most days exercising, stretching, and walking with small weights on his legs with and without a walker from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m.
“If I can get back I would,” he said. “That’s kind of my goal at this point to get back in uniform. We’ll see about the injuries and how things change.”
