For the first hour after he was shot in the neck, sheriff's Deputy Miguel Galarza thought he might die.
He kept working anyway.
"I believed that one of the suspects was in the area," he said. "So I had to do my job."
Wednesday the Hillsborough County Sheriff's Office presented Galarza with a Silver Cross Award in honor of his work Oct. 13, when he was shot while responding to what turned out to be a home invasion.
The bullet entered under Galarza's right ear and exited near his left ear. It sliced through muscle and soft tissue, leaving him with a circular scar and bullet fragments in his neck.
It could have been much worse - the bullet missed his spinal cord by about an inch.
Galarza's survival was so miraculous that Sheriff David Gee went out and bought him lottery tickets.
Galarza, a deputy since January 2007, had been sent to a 911 call in Town 'N Country. The caller didn't say anything distinguishable, and the dispatcher only could hear a faint voice.
After Galarza entered the apartment, he was shot during a struggle with a suspect.
"Bottom line, I thought I was dead," he said.
He got up and alerted dispatchers that he had been shot.
When help arrived, he was led from the apartment. But with a suspect still thought to be in the area, Galarza helped maintain a perimeter. He was running on adrenaline.
He said there's no way to describe how he felt until he was told about an hour after the shooting that his wound wasn't life-threatening.
Deputies arrested Miguel Angel Serrano later that day. He has pleaded not guilty to attempted murder and other charges. A second suspect in the home invasion, Victor Manuel Maldonado, faces charges unrelated to the shooting.
Galarza returned to work about two weeks after being shot.
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