Bob Marley (Part 3 by Guest Blogger Mark Nelson)

This is a continuation of Mark’s story about his time in prison in Venezuela.

So the gang boss said to me, “Do you want to fight him?”
I said, “Yeah, I wanna fight.”
So we had a fight and I mashed him up. I’m a big man.
After the fight, he threatened to kill me in the night. The next day he came with 15 of his gang mates and jumped me. They laid into me until the second in command of the gang stopped the fight by firing his gun.
We had to explain ourselves to the boss. I told him about the hassle Thomas had been giving me. He called Thomas over, and took his pistol off him. We fought again – and again I beat him up.

That night Thomas came to my cell, where I was chatting to King Kong and another friend. He tried to make trouble, but I just ignored him. I thought he had gone, but he came back into my cell, and I heard gunfire.

I didn’t feel any pain. It was like someone had just pricked me with a pin. When I looked down, I saw a kind of grey colour near my stomach.
King Kong was saying, “Oh my God, he shot you!”
I was holding my side for a few seconds, and started to walk out of the door towards the hospital. But I couldn’t manage more than a few yards before I collapsed. I just felt something gushing out of me.
I remember hearing my Dutch friend saying to me, “Bob Marley, don’t die. Don’t die. Stay strong.”
All I could see was a white light, and I was walking towards this light.

Just before I reached the light, my eyes opened and I was in a hospital bed. I could see my stomach had stitches everywhere – more than 60 in total. I had tubes going straight into me, so I could breathe and to feed me. The doctor told me that I was very lucky. My stomach had been blown to pieces, and I was 50 / 50 at one point. I lost four litres of blood – it was a miracle that I was still alive. I thought it was game over, but I thought, Someone up there loves me. God’s looking after me

I was told that the guy who shot me was going to be released soon – I couldn’t believe it, the guy had shot me! I was told there was nothing I could do about it.

After hospital, I went to various prisons and police stations in Caracas until Thomas was released. At that point I had to go back to San Antonio – even though the other gang members were still there.

Click here for Part 2

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Shaun Attwood