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Uptown Shooting Victim Recounts His Story Of Survival

(CBS) – He was confronted by a man who police say had just committed murder.

Then that man allegedly opened fire again outside a Dunkin' Donuts shop.

And Brion Payne hit the grounds.

But he didn't die. He fought.

CBS 2's Brad Edwards reports.

"It would have been real easy to just close my eyes and just drift off, but the fighter in me said you got way too much, you got way too much to live for," Payne says.

April First was nearly his last.

He was out of a coma a week ago and home just this weekend. With a shattered jaw and neck bone -- it's hard to swallow, taste and speak, but Payne is alive.

"My life has been changed with one shot," the father of 11 says.

While meeting a co-worker, he ran across, police say, Joey Jones, who is now charged with murder for killing a clerk before their paths crossed.

He said the gunman's eyes looked "crazed."

Payne says he thinks he knows why he lived.

"I survived to show people that there is a God," he says.

He believes the system will take care of the accused, but he says that's not where his energy his. His energy is focused on getting back to life, to work and taking care of his family.

 

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