It’s a miracle I’m here. It’s a miracle that Zara is here
Dad who lived after being shot in face reveals his baby joy
Prouddad Steven Macbeth cuddles the baby daughter he almost did not live to see.
The 35-year-old joiner was shot in the face at point blank range at a party.
The airgun pellet was millimetres from killing him and remains in his brain as surgeons feared it was too dangerous to remove the fingernail sized slug.
As he marks the fifth anniversary of being shot, Stephen tells The Sunday Post: “Zara is the baby who might never have been here.
“It is a miracle that I am alive and walking around and a miracle that she is here too.
“Just 20 millimetres closer to that brain stem – less than an inch – and I would have been a goner.
“It was sheer luck that it missed. Someone up there must have been looking down on me the morning I was shot.”
Baby Zara Michelle MacBeth was born at Raigmore Hospital, Inverness, in February.
She came along two-and-a-half years after Steven and his community nurse fiancée married. And she is Steven’s pride and joy.
Steven – who still suffers sight problems and headaches and continues to be monitored by doctors – says: “When the midwife put her in my arms I was overwhelmed. There was an instant connection. It was very emotional; a life changing moment.”
Wife Shelley, 32, who was at Steven’s side throughout his harrowing ordeal, smiles: “We had always wanted to start a family.”
Steven had been at a party in September 2012 when a teenage reveller fired an airgun. He was sitting down when the slug hit him and was then rushed to hospital. The once super-fit sports enthusiast recalls: “The slug ricocheted off the side of my nose and went in under my eye socket, embedding itself in the back of my skull. It felt like being hit on the back of the head with a mallet.
“For weeks and weeks after, I couldn’t understand why it ended up where it did. When I saw the scan I couldn’t believe it.
“It was like an explosion had gone off in my head. Surgeons say they cannot remove it.
“There are too many risks. I just have to live with it.”
Steven was initially paralysed and while the physical scars healed, he was left with impaired vision, partial paralysis and had to learn to walk again.
The teenager who shot him appeared at Dingwall Sheriff Court in October 2013 and admitted recklessly discharging the air rifle. He was ordered to carry out 220 hours of unpaid work and pay £1000 in compensation to his victim.
Brave Steven, who is back to work but still receives treatment, reveals: “Five years ago when I was lying in that hospital bed I could never have envisaged holding my own baby.”
The joiner, who with Shelley has bought and moved into a new home, is now looking forward to a bright new future with his family.
He says: “I still feel the effects of the slug, some days are terrible, others are great, but now I have a bigger reason than ever to keep going. I have to be there for Zara.”