Derek Howe says he is lucky to be alive after a New Year's morning carjacking. Howe was shot and left in the freezing cold and tells 6 News that he had to play dead so thieves would let him live. "Somebody opened the door and told me to get out." Howe says he was taking a nap in his warm car early New Year's morning
"I tried to grab the door and shut it again and that's when I heard the pop." He had been shot. "Just felt like a punch really, a really hard punch…I rolled out so they thought I was dead so they wouldn't try and you know, finish it off."
Howe says the bullet is still lodged inside his chest. "It could have gotten his vital organs," says his worried mother Angy Howe. It wasn't until the next morning that she learned her son was hurt. "I had some broken messages from Derek and I called the hospital and they told me my son had been shot."
Howe's car turned up damaged in an Omaha impound lot. Derek fears the car may not run again after extensive damage to the front end. "If they had fun from it, whatever I hope that it was worth…if they get caught the jail time that they're going to have to do for shooting me…They disrespected my property that I had to work hard for to get."
Council Bluffs police ask anyone with information to call Crime Stoppers at 712-328-7867.