CINCINNATI — Remember this before you go out next New Year’s Eve. It’s a message from a 78-year-old College Hill man that just might save someone’s life – maybe yours.
“The way to make it a better Happy New Year is to not risk someone’s life by firing a gun in the air,” Patrick Malloy said Tuesday. “Just don’t do it.”
WCPO first talked to Malloy a year ago on New Year’s Day 2019. He had been shot outside his home the night before. Now he’s hoping folks will take the time to celebrate every New Year’s in a safer fashion.
“I’m certainly wiser than I was last year!” Malloy said. "My family said, ‘You’re not going out, are you?’
“I said, ‘No, I’m not!’”
One year ago, he rushed outside to wish his neighbors a happy new year. What happened next was anything but.
“I heard it hit my leg. It smacked me like someone hit me with a baseball bat,” Malloy said. “I felt it at the same time I heard it.”
Someone celebrating by shooting a gun had shot Malloy. His physical scars are healing, but …
“Not emotionally. Ask me what I’m going to do this New Year’s Eve," he said. “I’m going to be on this side of the brick wall. I’m not going outside.”
Malloy had another message to everyone - a reminder about gravity.
“My message is … What goes up, must come down!” Malloy said.
After last year’s shooting, Malloy found other bullets, one piercing through a car’s hood. He said enough is enough.
“If you’ve got to use a gun, buy a box of blanks!" Malloy said.
“If that bullet that went in the hood hit me in the head, or even the one that came down that grazed me, I’d be dead."
What’s Malloy’s New Year’s resolution?
“Not to go outside during New Year’s ever again!” he said.
