Hero PC David Rathband tells of brush with death

Jul 22 2010 by Katie Davies, The Journal

POLICEMAN David Rathband has told of the moment he knew he had gone blind, seconds after a killer shot him in the face.

The traffic officer was carrying out his everyday duties when he was shot through the window of his patrol car by fugitive Raoul Moat.

He was stationed on the roundabout where the A1 meets the A69 when he came face-to-face with the ex- bouncer.

PC Rathband, a father-of-two, was seriously injured after he suffered gunshot wounds to his face and chest. Doctors told him last week he would not regain his sight in either eye.

But yesterday, after he was driven home from Newcastle’s Royal Victoria Infirmary in an ambulance with a police patrol car escort, he told of the moment when he discovered he had gone blind.

Moments earlier, the officer sent a text to his wife Kath, 40, telling her that all officers were looking out for a fugitive gunman.

PC Rathband said: “As I put my phone down in the side of the door, I had a feeling that someone was looking at me or that someone was with me.

“And when I sat up in the seat I saw Raoul Moat running from concrete pillars and I didn’t immediately think that he was holding a gun. My first instinct was that it was him.

“Then I noticed he had something in his hand. He was holding the barrel in left hand and the stock in his right and he was running towards the car.

“As I looked at him, he pointed the gun forward. The next thing I felt was my face just explode. I thought I saw the flash of the gun, but I don’t know if that was the star effect. But it was the noise that I heard.

“It was like my head was inside a tin can and someone had put a fire work in it and set it alight. It was absolutely unbearable.

“It was the noise that was hurting, although I felt the weapon discharge into my face and in between my eyes, the noise just seemed to be ripping through my head and throat. It felt as through it was ripping my skin off.