‘It’s a miracle’: Lyft driver survives three bullets to the head and chest

One of the three bullets entered Antoine Roston’s head from below his left ear.

It shattered his left jaw and at least three teeth, blew a hole through his tongue and burst out of his right cheek.

The second bullet dug through the back of his head, ripping a furrow that doctors had to staple closed.

The last bullet is still embedded below his left clavicle, inches from his heart.

Roston, 41, can’t verbalize what happened early Sunday morning when he arrived as a driver for Lyft to pick up a woman outside the Landing Eatery & Pub in Liberty. His jaw is wired shut and his tongue swollen.

What little Roston has been able to communicate to his wife, their three children, his mother and sister — when he hasn’t been in surgery or sedated — has been in hand-scrawled notes.

The family knows from police that 28-year-old Patrick Logan Pulse of Independence is being held on $100,000 bond in Clay County, charged with felony assault and armed criminal action.

Early Sunday morning, Pulse’s girlfriend had summoned a Lyft ride to the restaurant, and Roston answered the call. Witnesses told police that Roston and Pulse began arguing and then fighting in the parking lot.

Police say Pulse opened fire with a semiautomatic handgun. Six laser-sighted shots. Three hit Roston. Pulse then forced the woman into his blood-stained Jeep, fled and was later stopped and arrested. Police say Pulse told them he “f---ed up.”

While Roston can barely communicate, there is so much his family is telling him.

“It’s a miracle,” his sister Anneasyka “Neasy” Roston said. “Straight-up God. This was God being his shield.”

Six shots. Three of them so close to his brain, his spinal column, his major arteries and his heart. Everything vital just missed.

But in one of his notes, said his wife, Monee Roston, he must have been thinking about all the worry he caused her in this line of work he loves so much.

He is “the protector,” his wife said. He’s always looking out for people, taking care of their needs — his family first, but also his friends, and in caring for people he meets as a driver, and as a preacher.

He must have been troubled by the difficulties ahead for his family in his recovery and its costs. Maybe he was remorseful that this time he didn’t heed his wife’s constant advice whenever he felt stressed or uncertain about one of these nighttime driving calls, that he can always “just come on home.”

His note, they said, was simply: I’m sorry.

The past year has tested the family’s resilience, said Roston’s mother, DeAnna Roston.

His father, Nathaniel Roston, began suffering from dementia and heart failure in 2016. Antoine Roston took over his care, setting him up in a nearby apartment, putting in an extra bed so someone could stay with him overnight.

His father died in May.

Meanwhile, Antoine Roston has continued to grow his own driving business — ZMAKC Transportation — with fine black vehicles, SUVs and Lincolns.

That is the driving he likes to do, his family said — his own company, driving CEOs and professional athletes.

The driving he did for Lyft — same as when he had driven for Uber before — helped support his own enterprise.

He’s a pastor too. For a while in the 2000s he had a church, Rapha Temple on Linwood Boulevard.

“Rapha means ‘healing’ in Hebrew,” his wife said.

It was the Good Samaritan in Roston that led him to help some of the more destitute people he would encounter as a driver, she said. He’d deliver people to social services, even bringing one person home who needed their care.

And he had a sarcastic streak. “He’s got an opinion and he’s got to share it,” his wife said.

When he was out working at night, she said, “I constantly prayed over him.”

Then, at 2:30 Sunday morning, her cellphone rang. A man saying he was a chaplain told her that her husband had been shot and she needed to come to the hospital. She thought a chaplain would call only if her husband were dead or dying.

“Just tell me,” she said, “is he gone?”

He’d gotten into danger, that was sure. He’d gone to pick up a woman who requested a ride and ended up in a fight with the man she was with — a man police said had a gun.

“We are not holding grudges,” Neasy Roston said. “We believe in forgiveness.”

Monee Roston said of the man accused of the shooting: “I pray he gets saved.”

For Antoine Roston, they believe he has been saved.

He’s in great pain. He cried when he learned he could not talk for weeks.

But Neasy Roston, a registered medical assistant, and Monee Roston, a certified nursing assistant, see a miracle in the doctors’ prognosis.

His tongue will recover quickly. He may need dental implants. He may need some reconstruction of his jaw. But these wounds heal.

This story was originally published November 1, 2017 at 7:00 AM with the headline "‘It’s a miracle’: Lyft driver survives three bullets to the head and chest."