This might well be the explanation, along with a bullet proof vest, as to how Brooklyn, New York native Brian Murphy took nine bullets from crazed gunman Wade Page, who unleashed hell in a Wisconsin Sikh temple on Sunday.
Had Murphy not stood in the way, those nine bullets were intended for more helpless worshipers other than the six who were killed, and the three who were wounded.
Even as he lay prone on the ground, Murphy, 51, directed other officers to assist Sikh worshipers who had come to pray on a sunny Sunday morning only to be attacked by a hate-filled gunman who Murphy's fellow officers ultimately shot dead.
Murphy, though taken to hospital in critical condition with gunshot wounds to his neck and face, is expected to survive
"He was in very close proximity to the shooter. When he arrived, he came upon someone who was injured, and he was going to assist that individual when the shooter came around him, close to his squad, and hit him at a close distance," Oak Creek Police Chief, John Edwards, said of Murphy, a 21-year veteran.
"He had been shot nine times, one of them very serious in the neck area, and he waved them off and told them to go into the temple to assist those in there," Edwards said in reference to other officers who had rushed to the scene.
Murphy was born in Brooklyn, but moved to the Midwest to be closer to his wife's family, his father, James Murphy told ABC News.
Murphy's brother, Terry, is a recently retired NYPD detective who had been attached to the department's intelligence division, the Daily News reported.
