Kansas shooting hero who took bullet for Indian honoured by Time magazine

Houston: Time magazine has honoured Ian Grillot, the US national who took a bullet for an Indian while trying to intervene during a racially-motivated shooting in Kansas early this year.

Grillot’s name features in the magazine among “5 Heroes Who Gave Us Hope in 2017.”

Grillot, then 24, was injured when he tried to intervene in the shooting by a Navy veteran targeting Indians at a bar in Olathe, Kansas, in February.

Srinivas Kuchibhotla, 32 , was killed in the shooting that also left his colleague Alok Madasani, critically injured.

“I wouldn’t have been able to live with myself if I didn’t do anything,” Grillot said in an article posted by Time on Thursday.

The magazine saluted the Kansas man as the “bargoer who stepped into the line of fire.”

“Without all the prayers and positive support from everybody, I wouldn’t be doing as well as I am right now. It has been a wonderful year and a blessing to be alive,” said Grillot.

Earlier in 2017, Grillot was honoured as ‘A True American Hero’ by the Indian-American community in Houston which raised USD 100,000 to help him buy a house in his hometown Kansas.

Grillot was watching a televised basketball game at the restaurant when a gunman approached Srinivas and Alok, both 32, and reportedly told them to “get out of my country.”

Grillot was shot in the chest in an attempt to keep the assailant from harming others.

Adam Purinton of Olathe has been charged with first- degree murder and attempted murder in the assaults.

Others saluted by Time included a chef who fed Hurricane Maria victims in Puerto Rico, Houston neighbours who aided a woman having a baby in the aftermath of Hurricane Harvey, and a California dog who refused to leave behind livestock he was guarding as wildfires raged.