Married Jay Matthews, 41, of Staines, Surrey, has been helping at a hospital in Zaporizhzhia — just 25 miles from the south-eastern front line with Russia.
Speaking yards from where the bullet hit his guesthouse, Jay recalled how he heard drones around midnight on January 22, on his first day in the city. Earlier that month, 13 civilians had already been killed in a Russian attack. He said: "I heard the gunfire. I was like, 'Oh, that sounds close'.
"Then I heard glass shattering in the house... at first I thought there'd been an explosion so I thought maybe it was like some debris or shrapnel or something." It later emerged a bullet had gone through two doors and a cupboard yards away on the other side of the hallway.
He said: "Had I been quicker down the stairs, I'd have been metres from it.
"Had it come in higher it would have gone through [a colleague's] room before mine. They're thinner walls upstairs, not concrete, so who know...
Speaking yards from where the bullet hit his guesthouse, Jay recalled how he heard drones around midnight on January 22, on his first day in the city. Earlier that month, 13 civilians had already been killed in a Russian attack. He said: "I heard the gunfire. I was like, 'Oh, that sounds close'.
"Then I heard glass shattering in the house... at first I thought there'd been an explosion so I thought maybe it was like some debris or shrapnel or something." It later emerged a bullet had gone through two doors and a cupboard yards away on the other side of the hallway.
He said: "Had I been quicker down the stairs, I'd have been metres from it.
"Had it come in higher it would have gone through [a colleague's] room before mine. They're thinner walls upstairs, not concrete, so who know...
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Daily Mirror UK (Digital) - 1 Issue, March 10, 2025