How Getting Shot in the Butt at a Drug-Fueled Sex Party Saved a Florida Man's Life

​It's important to get regular doctor checkups to screen for possible health concerns, because all of us might not be so lucky to get shot in an Orlando-area motel room full of hookers. That's what happened to 45-year-old Dan D'Amato, and what originally seemed to be a near-death experience actually might have saved his life.

D'Amato was at the Orlando-area Knights Inn motel last month to meet two prostitutes. He tells the Orlando Sentinel that the scene was basically that of a 24-hour sex party with random people popping in for drug use and a romp with the hookers.

D'Amato was sitting on the floor of the room around 4 a.m. when an unidentified gunman with an AK-47 began shooting up the place. D'Amato dove behind the bed, but one of the bullets hit him right above the buttocks and exited through his hip.

via Daily Mail

Surveillance footage of D'Amato shortly after being shot.

​After D'Amato was transported to Orlando Regional Medical Center, doctors examined him and found two growths in his lungs. One was a massive tumor weighting three to four pounds. The growth wasn't cancerous but had caused a number of respiratory problems, and it eventually could have been fatal.

"[The surgeon] said, 'Dude, getting shot saved your life,'" D'Amato tells the Sentinel.

D'Amato, who has a hefty nonviolent criminal history himself, has taken the shooting as a sign he needs to turn his life around.

"I put myself in a position to die surrounded by people I didn't know," he said. "The fact that I almost died alone was a wake-up call for me."

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