NEW ORLEANS – More than a year after almost losing his life to a gunman, a former Tulane medical student is hoping his experience helps others.
Shocking surveillance video from November of 2015 shows a man violently dragging a woman down a French Quarter street in a choke hold. Peter Gold, a then fourth-year Tulane medical school student, pulls his car over and jumps out to her aid.
“My instincts kicked in immediately and the next thing I knew without even thinking I was yelling at him and trying to do anything just to leave her alone,” said Gold.
That’s when the tables turned.
“He pulled his gun out and at point blank range told me, I’m going to kill you and shot me in the stomach” explained Gold.
As he laid, writhing in agony, gunman Euric Cain tries to shoot Gold two more times, but his life was spared when the gun jammed.
“I was on the phone with my mom and dad at the time,” he said. “So they heard the whole thing happen.”
Even after this tragic, nearly life-ending incident, Gold continues to come to the aid of others. While still in the hospital he decided to start, a nonprofit called ‘Strong City’ that he launched earlier this month. It is now partnered with the Youth Empowerment Project (YEP).
“He was really excited about our summer camp program, about our Camp Mariposa program, about our after-school program,” Co-founder of YEP Melissa Sawyer explained. “And so when he came down here, he said, ‘Look Melissa we want to invest in young people, we want to invest in New Orleans.’”
Sawyer said Gold wanted to turn his attention to the early intervention and prevention programs, wanting to get to kids before they make life altering decisions.
“One of the things I really admire about Peter is that as opposed to trying to start his own nonprofit doing direct services he really had a level of humility and patience and desire to learn from folks on the ground.”
Now with Strong City, he wants to put that knowledge to work helping the community.
“Through fundraising and also building a network of skilled professionals, we’re supporting community-based organizations that are already doing a good job at empowering underserved youth and we want to give them the resources they need in order to continue to do the amazing work that they’ve already done,” Gold said.