This is the miracle moment a Navy sergeant is saved from an assassin's bullets by the service survival manual in his backpack.
Serviceman Leandro Araujo de Oliveira, 38, was riding his motorcycle at night when a pair of biker muggers in Radureira, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, ordered him to pull over at gunpoint. As he fled, the crooks opened fire, and as can be seen in the images, one round was buried in his Navy survival guide, and another bounced off his physical therapy ball harmlessly.
First-person-view bodycam footage from 15th June shows de Oliveira riding his motorbike as the pillion passenger aims a handgun at him. They shot Olivieras he tried to flee in the opposite direction but astonishingly, they only hit their target in his backpack.
The crooks only hit him with two of the shots fired before military police officers arrived and began firing back, forcing them to flee.
De Oliviera later told the police: "The criminals approached me, fired shots, two hit me from behind and stopped at my book. Thanks to the military, they fled."
Leandro's father, retiree Jorge de Oliveira, said his son was heading to the family home after coming off duty. He said: "He was on his way home when they tried to rob him. They fired two shots and by God's grace, he was not injured. The shots went through his backpack and took out his book and an object that he used to strengthen his fingers. It was deliverance, It was luck, thank God. When I found out what happened, I went up to the roof of my house and started crying and thanking God."
In 2021, it emerged that a 130-year-old notebook had saved its owner's life by taking a bullet for him on the battlefield. George Dowsell was serving in the 2nd Devon Regiment in the Third Anglo-Burmese War when he was shot.
But the Bristolian soldier escaped largely unscathed as the bullet tore through the front cover of the notebook stashed in his chest pocket. It then bored through the pages, stopping just shy of the back cover, meaning George had escaped death by millimetres.
He then used the book to record his miraculous survival with minimal fuss. George wrote: “Speak not this book for fear of shame, for here you will see the owner’s name. No. 1787 Pte George Dowsell 2nd Devon Regiment. Done by a bullet when in my pocket at Kyain Kwile Loung on Sunday the 22nd of February, 1891.”