British mum is shot in Brazilian slum
Hols family with 3 kids fired at by gang after wrong turn
A BRAVE ex-Para saved his family from a heavily armed drug gang – after his wife was shot in front of her three children in an ambush.
Eloise Dixon, 46, was hit when husband Max mistakenly drove into a slum and their car was riddled with bullets.
Max’s mum Hazel, 76, said: “I think she was so lucky. It could so easily have been different. It’s not worth thinking about.
“The three little girls were in the back, they are all absolutely traumatised. But they are all OK.”
With tyres blown out, Max, 46, now a fireman after leaving the Parachute Regiment, drove his rental Renault out of the Brazilian favela to safety.
He made it to a police station to raise the alarm and officers rushed Eloise to hospital. Doctors said she was “very lucky” as the shots missed all vital organs.
The couple’s daughters, aged 13, eight and seven, were unhurt.
Hazel added: “He’s just the right person for that to happen to because his Army training will have kicked in immediately.
“He phoned and very matter-of-factly said, ‘Things aren’t too good here, Eloise has been shot’, or something like that. Max said the car was riddled with shots. The police took them to hospital at 100mph, he said.”
The family, of Bromley, south-east London, were a week into a 17-day holiday when they were attacked on Sunday in Angra dos Reis, a popular coastal holiday spot 90 miles from Rio de Janeiro, police said.
Officers, who are hunting for two gunmen, believe a language mix-up took them to the notorious Agua Santa neighbourhood, controlled by the Terceiro Comando Puro gang.
Police chief Bruno Gilaberte said: “They were shot at after failing to understand an order to leave the area.”
One local official said it was a no-go zone. “These are communities which people cannot enter,” he said.
Teacher Eloise’s condition yesterday was described as “stable”.
A Foreign Office spokesman said: “We are in touch with the local authorities.”