Heart and Soul: I was shot at school and wouldn’t change a thing

The Documentary Podcast

BBC

Society & Culture, Documentary, Personal Journals

4.3 • 2.6K Ratings

🗓️ 4 April 2025

⏱️ 27 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

School shootings in the USA continue to be a far too common tragedy. In January 2017, 16-year-old Logan Cole, who lives in a small town in the American mid-west was shot in the bathroom of his high school by a fellow student. His injuries were extensive. Afraid for their own lives, other students jumped out of school windows, running shoeless across snowy fields in the freezing Ohio winter. As the news rippled around the small neighbourhood, there was an overwhelming sense of shock, despair and disbelief. Sam Walker travels to Ohio to see first-hand the effects that Logan’s own faith had on his actions and how his attitude of love and forgiveness towards the young man who shot him had an extraordinary effect on the people of his community.

Transcript

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0:00.5	Were you afraid to die while you were on the floor in that bathroom?
0:03.8	Did that go through your head?
0:05.2	Yeah, I did.
0:06.2	So when I first got shot, my brain didn't think I got shot.
0:09.6	I mean, in school, you don't expect to just walk around the corner and get shot, you know?
0:14.4	So it took me a while to process what had happened.
0:17.6	I actually did not know that I had been shot in the back until I was in the
0:20.9	hospital. My body was in enough shock and pain that I think I just hadn't thought about it.
0:25.3	If you could go back to that day in 2017 and choose not to go into that bathroom, would you?
0:31.2	I would definitely go into the bathroom again, which is such a weird thing to say. But I would
0:35.2	not change a single aspect of that. I think God put me there
0:38.6	that day. Thank you. Yes, I am. This is the documentary on the BBC World Service. I'm Sam Walker,
0:53.3	and on this week's heart and soul, I've come to West Liberty
0:55.9	in Ohio to hear the story of how a moment of gun violence in January 2017 rocked this small
1:02.8	rural town and how one extraordinary young man who faced the unimaginable responded in a way that
1:09.3	helped heal his whole community.
1:13.2	Hello.
1:13.7	How are you doing?
1:15.3	Good. How is your morning?
1:17.4	My name is Greg Johnson.
1:18.7	I am the high school principal here at West Liberty Salem.
1:21.4	This is my 20th year as the principal and my 28th year working here in this district.
	...

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