By CYRUS OMBATI
When he flew to Kenya for the wedding of his long-time friend Captain Andrew Little in Naivasha on November 11, last year, Shane West did not know his life was about to change forever.
As he admired the scenery below, there was no inkling that he would never fly again and enjoy a career he had nurtured for 27 years piloting different types of planes on almost all continents. Captain Shane West was shot at his friendâs wedding last November and is now is confined to a wheelchair. [PHOTO: COLLINS KWEYU/Standard]
All that West thought of was the glittering wedding he was going to attend, followed by an elaborate evening party before he could fly to Sudan where he had secured a contract and later visit his family in December.
Everything was going as planned. Then, at the evening party, something unexpected happened. As West, 47, and other guests were enjoying the music during the evening party for his newly-wed friend and his bride Maureen Wanjiku at the Sopa Lodge in Naivasha, he suddenly felt a slight pain on his left side of the lung.
"I thought I had been electrocuted but I could see surprise on the faces of some of those in attendance because they had realised there was a gunshot. It wasnât until one of the DJs came to me saying you have blood and you need first aid that I realised things were thick," the Australian who lives in Kenya told The Standard in an interview this week.
Apparently, West had been shot once in the chest and the bullet had lodged on the right side of his hand after rupturing the spine and lung.
West is now confined to a wheelchair in his house in Nairobi nursing a gunshot wound that shattered part of his left lung and spine, leaving him paralysed.
Painful experience
"It is a painful experience given I am confined to this wheelchair and have to be attended to by two nurses day and night," he says in a deep voice, the familiar voice of a pilot welcoming passengers to the plane and assuring them of a safe flight.
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