OAKLAND -- It was the kind of a long haul job trucker Lloyd Jerry Matson Sr., had done hundreds of times in his 43-year career.

This time he was to deliver a generator to the O.co Coliseum and then head back home to Auburn, Indiana.

Instead, the Dec. 15 trip turned into a nightmarish ordeal for the 72-year-old Matson and his family after he was shot in the stomach by someone who tried to break in to the cab of his truck.

"There were several times early on where I didn't think I was going to pull through," Matson said Tuesday from his bed at Highland Hospital, where he has spent four weeks in and out of the ICU.

Lloyd Jerry Matson poses for a photo with his wife Janet Matson. Jerry Matson, a 72-year-old trucker from Indiana, is recovering from gunshot to abdomen he suffered from an assailant who tried to break into his truck in Oakland on Dec. 15, 2015. (Courtesy of the Matson Family) ( Matson Family )

Matson said he's seen a lot of crazy things during the four decades he's been a trucker, including when a bullet passed through his cab during a union strike in the 1970s. But nothing has come close to his experience in Oakland, which started after he parked for the night in the 6600 block of Oakport Street. He stayed there because a coliseum security guard said he could not make his delivery until the morning because there was a concert.

He was asleep, dressed only in his "tighty whities," when he was awakened by someone who was shaking the cab in an effort to break the driver's side window using the butt of a gun.

Matson said he was still disorientated when the glass shattered. Having no gun himself, he recalled his basic training from when he was a young man in the U.S. Marines.


"If you don't have a weapon, you better do anything you can to distract them, so I did -- I lunged," Matson said.

Matson's lunge into the broken window caused the attacker to fall backward and fire a single shot from a .45-caliber gun. The bullet entered left of Matson's navel and traveled down his thigh. The pain, he said, was so excruciating that he told a 911 dispatcher that he was dying.

"I said, 'I'm not going to make it through this; the lights are going off,' " Matson said. "She yelled something that made me snap to attention, and then I heard the sirens."

Matson's wife of 50 years, retired nurse Janet, got the call from the hospital early the next morning. She frantically raced to get dressed -- she laughs at remembering she put on deodorant twice -- and get to the Indianapolis airport more than 100 miles from home for the first available flight. .

The holidays were difficult for their family of four children, nine grandchildren, and five great-grandchildren.

"I was a nurse and worked in the ER, but when it's a member of your family that's hurt, it's something else," Janet Matson said.

So far, her husband has undergone three surgeries and battled two serious infections, and no one seems to be able to estimate when he will be released from the hospital.

And while his condition has improved, his financial situation has worsened as he can no longer work and bills pile up for rental cars and hotel rooms for his wife.

Janet Matson said she got $170 from the hospital but none so far from the county's victims assistance program. Money has been so tight that she slept in her car last Sunday night.

His daughter Christy has set up a Go Fund Me account to help with their expenses.

As far as his trucking business, Matson said, "I'm pretty much done."

Oakland police so far have not made any arrests in the case. Although vehicle break-ins happen occasionally in the area where Matson was shot, shootings are rare.

Up to $7,500 in reward money is being offered by police and Crime Stoppers of Oakland for information leading to an arrest in the case. Anyone with information may call police at 510-238-3426 or Crime Stoppers at 510-777-8572.

To make a donation to the Matson family, go to gofund.me/evh7sfdr.

Contact Malaika Fraley at 925-234-1684. Follow her at Twitter.com/malaikafraley.