ST. LOUIS — "I am bewildered. I am stunned. I really don't know what to think right now. I'm just wondering, why did this happen to me? " said 70-year-old Charles Phillips.
Those are some of the thoughts weighing on the Vietnam veteran's heart.
"I'm really hurting. I'm taking pills because I'm still in a lot of pain," Phillips told 5 On Your Side's Robert Townsend during an exclusive interview Tuesday.
Right now, he's using a walker and crutches to get around.
He's hobbling around his home after getting shot in his leg four days ago.
"I basically have to struggle to get around. Every time I get up, the pain tells me to go sit back down or sit my feet back up," Phillips said.
Phillips told police around 3 p.m. Friday he was sitting in his car, waiting on a friend near Dr Martin Luther King Driver near Garrison when out of the blue, he could not believe what was happening.
"I heard a lot of shooting and I think people were scattering and running," he recalled.
Running for their lives as a hail of gunfire popped off in the Jeff Vander Lou neighborhood.
"I was ducking down in my car. Ducking and praying that I don't die or I don't get hit," Phillips said.
Unfortunately, a single bullet blasted through his driver's side door, shattered his car window and went through his right leg.
A friend rushed Phillips to the hospital.
"I still can't believe it. I'm thankful that it happened where the bullet went through my skin and didn't hit any bones or arteries. I'm able to recover," Phillips said.
Police said a 17-year-old boy was also shot.
Witnesses told police people in dark clothing were shooting at each other.
"More than two people shooting. I think it was gang-related. One group shooting at the other," said the shooting survivor.
Meantime, one week before Thanksgiving, the great-grandfather and four-time cancer survivor is grateful he survived the scar that happened in the neighborhood where he's lived all his life.
"I've lived in my current house since 1968, and yes, in this area all my life. I think about that all the time and I'm thankful that the Lord kept me. I'm just hoping that they can do something about all this gun violence here in St. Louis," Phillips said.
Police ask anyone with information about the double shooting to call the St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department's Central Patrol Division at 314-444-2500.