'I'm blessed': Indiana man who lost eye in Parkway West shooting tells his tale

Bob Long thought he’d been in a car crash.

While merging onto Interstate 376 from Route 51 in Pittsburgh last month, Long suddenly felt blood pouring down his face into his mouth — so much that he had to spit it out just to breathe.

The 61-year-old grandfather of five quickly realized there was no collision.

He’d been shot in the face.

Somehow, Long had enough composure to pull over. It was still daylight. He leaned back and felt himself losing consciousness.

“Everything went gray.”

Then a cab driver opened his door, “ ‘Hey, buddy, are you OK in there?’ ”

The cabbie cursed. Long heard him say, “Call 911.”

Then he blacked out again.

Nearly six weeks later, as Long continues to recover from the shooting that left him with one eye and no sense of taste or smell, he believes he was meant to survive.

“The Bible commands us to forgive people or we can’t get into heaven,” Long said from his home south of Indianapolis. “I’m a devout Christian, and I forgive him.”

‘Floating in air’

The territory manager for a window manufacturer had spent the weekend in Michigan and arrived in Pittsburgh on July 14, a Sunday, just before 6 p.m.

Driving his silver 2020 Chevy Malibu, Long headed to Pittsburgh International Airport to pick up two clients from Georgia and a colleague from Minneapolis for a meeting the next morning.

Long doesn’t remember having any confrontations as he drove through the South Hills that day — and Pittsburgh police said he did nothing wrong — but something made a man pull alongside him and fire four to six shots.

“I never saw the vehicle. I never saw the occupants of the vehicle,” Long told TribLive on Thursday. “The first inclination I had anything was going on was when the bullets went through my window and into my face.

“I felt like I was floating in air for a couple of seconds.”

As he lay in the front seat of his car and realized what had happened, Long said the cab driver, whose name he still doesn’t know, took off his own shirt and held it to Long’s face to try to stop the bleeding.

“That was incredible,” Long said. “He was my hero that day.”

Long was in and out of consciousness as paramedics got him out of the car and rushed him to UPMC Mercy hospital in Pittsburgh.

He remembers being awake just long enough at the trauma center to be able to sign a consent for treatment form, Long said, laughing.

And then he was out.

For a day, Long was on a ventilator.

He woke briefly the next night and spoke to his son-in-law — his whole family had arrived from Indiana and Colorado and Michigan.

“I think I lost my eye,” Long told him.

“Yes, you did,” his son-in-law replied.

By Wednesday, Long understood what had happened.

Putting the pieces together

Though it was small as bullets go — a .22-caliber — the projectile had traveled through Long’s left temple into his left eye. The bullet split, with fragments traveling out of his tear duct and through the bottom of the right side of his nose.

His orbital socket was shattered, as was the upper part of his nasal cavity.

He had two surgeries in Pittsburgh, the first to clean out the damage, the second to put the pieces back together.

Long lost his left eye.

“I realized at that point I had a long road ahead,” Long said.

Police said Rashawn Hall, 22, of McKeesport was driving a gray Jaguar SUV north on Route 51 that evening, following Long’s car “extremely closely.”

As they headed for the on-ramp, Hall cut off two cars, pulled alongside Long’s Malibu and started shooting, police said.

Detectives were able to track Hall’s car using dashboard camera footage from a witness’s car and license plate readers in the area.

Hall was arrested Aug. 12 and charged with attempted homicide, aggravated assault and conspiracy.

A preliminary hearing in the case is scheduled for Aug. 28. Long said he will attend via video.

Police have said they believe the shooting was an instance of road rage, Long said. He wonders if his car, which he described as common and nondescript, might have been mistaken by Hall for someone else’s.

A new reality

Long spent 12 days in the hospital, four of them in intensive care.

After he was released, his family took him on the long drive home, more than five hours, so he could begin his long recovery.

Long must decide whether he wants to get a prosthetic eye. If he does, it will require multiple surgeries.

He also must continue to adapt to having vision in only his right eye.

He joked about his depth perception, suggesting it’s like putting toothpaste on a toothbrush with one eye closed.

For the first several weeks after the shooting, Long said, he didn’t experience a great deal of pain. That’s because, doctors told him, he’d lost feeling in the left side of his face.

However, over the past week, as that feeling returns, he said, the pain is intense.

Long must sleep sitting up in a recliner because he still can’t breathe through his nose.

He will also have to relearn how to drive — a big concern.

As part of his work, he manages accounts in nine states and drives a great deal. Long was told that process could take six to 12 months. He expects to return to his job in October, working from home at first.

His work brings him to Pittsburgh about five times a year.

Long said he loves the city and plans to return.

“I’m not going to let something like this poison the well,” he said.

Forgiveness

Everyone keeps telling Long he’s lucky to be alive.

If he had known he was about to be shot — if he had even turned his head to glance in that direction — he might not be alive.

“I’m blessed,” he said.

But those blessings, he feels, come from more than just this brush with death.

In October 2022, Long said he was involved in a serious car crash where a large truck careened into an intersection, striking several vehicles.

His sternum was broken.

When Long underwent a CT scan for his injuries, the images showed cancer throughout his chest, he said.

He received chemotherapy for eight months.

And now he’s in remission.

“I truly believe God saved me in all three of those cases,” Long said. “I think the reason he spared me is to talk to people about forgiveness.”

Long believes he’s been able to forgive the man who shot him so easily because he never felt anger over it.

But, he continued, “Just because I forgive somebody doesn’t absolve the person of responsibility. He still needs to pay his dues. If you don’t pay a penalty, you won’t learn.”