Freeway Shooting Victim ‘Just Lucky to Be Alive’ : Violence: At least two people, using a .38-caliber pistol and a shotgun, fire four or five times at a Garden Grove man on the Artesia Freeway.

Jeff Teeters, a 30-year-old concrete contractor from Garden Grove, doesn’t know who shot at him on the freeway in Long Beach. He doesn’t know why.

“The first thing I knew was that glass shattered on the passenger side of my truck and fell against me,” Teeters said. “Then I felt this warmth. I looked down, and my shirt was covered with blood. . . . There were several shots.

“Bam, bam, bam, then boom, a big shot, and that’s the one that threw me against the door.”

Teeters said he later learned that at least two people, using two different weapons--a .38-caliber pistol and a shotgun--fired four or five times at him about 10:40 p.m. Thursday on the Artesia Freeway (California 91) in Long Beach. A white car drove alongside him, he said, and several shots were fired, then the car disappeared into the night.

Teeters, in a hospital interview in Long Beach, said: “I have no idea why this happened. It was just a random shooting. I guess I’m just lucky to be alive.”

Tetters suffered three gunshot wounds, in the jaw, neck and chest. Officials at the Memorial Medical Center of Long Beach said Friday that he is in “fair” condition.

Long Beach police said Friday that they have no suspects. “The victim has no idea who shot him,” Lt. Gary Whinery said. “We responded to his call at 10:50 p.m. after he got off at Cherry (Avenue) from the 91 Freeway.”

Steve Kohler, a spokesman for the California Highway Patrol in Sacramento, said Friday that there have been nine fatalities from freeway violence since June, 1987, when the CHP began keeping such statistics.

Kohler said the freeway deaths include varied causes, from thrown rocks to shootings, and he said the statistics are not broken down to show the number of shootings only.

He said CHP figures also show that from June, 1987, to March of this year, 179 injuries were caused by deliberate freeway violence.

“That sounds worse than it is statistically, considering the millions of drivers and millions of miles driven,” he said. “I’m not downplaying the violence, but statistically a much higher percentage of deaths and injuries are caused by DUI” (driving under the influence of drugs or alcohol).

CHP investigators have found varied causes for freeway shootings and other violence. But often the spark is something minor, such as an angry driver who did not like the way a car cut in front of him.

But Teeters said he had done nothing to trigger someone’s anger: He had not passed a car or cut anyone off with his 1984 Dodge pickup truck, and nothing had happened earlier to provoke violence.

“I was at a nightclub in Anaheim, and a friend had had too much to drink, so I gave him a ride to his home off Atlantic (Avenue) in Long Beach,” said Teeters, a bachelor. “I left him off, and I was then going to drive back to the nightclub to see my girl there. I guess it was about 10:30 or 10:40 at the time.

“I had just gotten back on the 91 Freeway, and I was driving eastbound in the center lane. Then this car pulled up alongside me and opened up. I heard gunfire and glass breaking on the passenger side of my truck.

“That’s when I saw it was a white car, when the glass flew in. A small white car. There had to be two people in it shooting, because I have two different kinds of slugs in my body.”

Teeters said he did not see who was shooting at him. Then the car backed off and exited at a nearby ramp. Teeters said he had no more than a glimpse at the “small white car,” so he does not know its make or model.

“I kept on driving, because I didn’t want to stop, obviously,” he said. “But I was saturated in blood, so I figured I’d better pull over before I passed out.”

Teeters exited the freeway at the Cherry Avenue off-ramp in Long Beach and found a telephone.

“I called my friend first, because I wasn’t sure if I was going to die,” he said. “I was bleeding a lot. I had to put pressure against my jaw to try to stop the bleeding.”

The friend he called was Carl Hensgen of Cypress, who was at the hospital Friday visiting Teeters.

“I was home asleep when I got his call about 11 o’clock,” Hensgen said. “Jeff sounded hysterical. He said, ‘I need help! Come get me!’ I told him to hang up immediately and call 911.”

Teeters said he followed Hensgen’s advice. “Police came within three minutes after I dialed 911, and the Fire Department people were right behind them,” he said.

The emergency teams rushed Teeters to the nearby hospital.

“One shot is lodged here in my neck,” said Teeters, pointing to the wound. “It went in the jaw, fractured the jaw, and then it went up the jawbone and into the neck. It was a hollow-point (.38-caliber bullet), and so it shattered. Basically, it traveled around before it lodged in my neck, but it missed both the artery and the spine.”

Teeters pointed to his other wounds. “There’s another .38 slug in my chest cavity, and this side of my chest here is peppered with shotgun pellets.”

A doctor “told me my brother was very lucky,” said Jim Teeters, 32, of Long Beach, who was with the victim in his hospital room. “The doctor said that bullet came very close to hitting a major artery, and if it had, Jeff would have been dead in a matter of minutes.

“The doctor told me they decided not to remove the slugs because it would involve too much surgery for Jeff. Both the .38 slugs are embedded in muscle. They may work their way out. They may not. Those slugs may be there the rest of his life.”

Teeters smiled and said, “So now I’m going to go off every time I go to the airport,” referring to the metal detectors at security checks.

Although Teeters joked about his ordeal in playful banter with his brother and Hensgen, he made it clear that he had been in fear for his life and also said he cannot understand why anyone would randomly shoot a stranger.

“Four or five shots were fired at me,” he said. “We know that because police found a round lodged in the front fender hood and one or two slugs in the cab, in addition to the slugs in me.

“I guess these things happen. I’ve read about them. I just never thought it would happen to me.”