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The teen accused of shooting an off-duty firefighter will be charged as an adult.
WASHINGTON — A D.C. firefighter says he feels lucky to be alive after he was shot over the weekend.
“It went in through here,” Gary ‘Zeek’ Dziekan explained, pointing to the bandage on his chest. “They said I was really lucky.”
He says doctors told him the bullet just missed hitting a major vein.
“It’s on each side of a centimeter from the block of nerves that control the right side of your body and the main vein that runs from your heart down your right arm, and they said if either one of those would have got hit, I probably would have not been here,” said Dziekan.
On Saturday night, he was headed home from a party.
“A good friend had friends had hosted an Oktoberfest party, so I cooked a pig all day, and so I left that party before it ended because my youngest son plays hockey and had a hockey game on Sunday morning,” he explained. “I wanted to get home, get a good night’s rest.”
As he walked near the intersection of C and Eighth Streets in NE, he heard someone running behind him.
“I heard somebody running up on me, and it just, I knew something. It wasn’t, it didn’t sound right,” he recalled.
As he turned around, he came face-to-face with a person dressed in all black, wearing a surgical mask.
“He pulled out a gun and said, ‘I want your cell phone,’” Dziekan said.
After handing over his phone, Dziekan said the suspect demanded he unlock it, which he did.
“He opened up some setting or app and said, ‘Put your password in.’ I said, ‘I don’t know what that is,’ and he put the gun in my chest,” Dziekan said. “I was certain he was gonna shoot me and I grabbed the barrel… and he pulled the trigger.”
Dziekan was shot in the chest, but says the suspect was also injured, dropped the gun, the phone, and took off running.
“He drops everything and takes off running. So, I get my phone, put it on speakerphone, I call 911,” he explained.
As he waited for someone to answer, he tried to remove his shirt.
“I had a white shirt on, it started to, like, turn all red. I can feel the blood running down. About that time, I look up and I hear somebody running at me, and that’s him, he’s coming back,” said Dziekan.
He told WUSA9 he believed the suspect was coming back to kill him.
“Why would you run back at somebody that you just shot?” Dziekan questioned. “You’re coming back to finish the job.
Dziekan said he picked up the suspect’s gun, which was on the ground, and fired. He told WUSA9 he wasn’t sure if he hit him, but saw that he ran off again.
Police later found the suspect, who has since been identified as 17-year-old Marcellus Dyson Jr., a few blocks away with a gunshot wound. Dziekan said that throughout the ordeal, he was still waiting on the line for 911.
“You’re alone out here,” he said. “I mean, it’s a bad feeling when they don’t answer.”
He asked a neighbor who had rushed over to help, to call his firehouse, which is just a few blocks away, directly. They were there in minutes and rushed him to the hospital.
On Monday night, some of his firehouse colleagues visited him at home, bringing food and support as he celebrated his 8-year anniversary with D.C. Fire and EMS.
“There’s nothing else like it, it’s really a brotherhood, sisterhood,” Dziekan said.
Now, home with his wife and children, Dziekan is focused on healing and hopes the shooting serves as a wake-up call for others.
“I was just a dad going home to get a night’s sleep to take my kid to his hockey game, and he changed my life forever,” he said. “A couple hundred dollars for a cell phone isn’t worth my life.”
Dyson Jr. faces three charges, including armed robbery. He is expected to appear in court on Tuesday.
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