Nearly two weeks after being shot on Ninth Street in front of his dispensary, Martin Olive is recovering well and giving interviews, and says he never met or interacted with the upstairs neighbor who tried to kill him.
Eight days after Vapor Room dispensary owner Martin Olive was shot seven times in front of his SoMa dispensary by a man who was then shot and killed after a four-hour stand-off with SFPD, Olive took to Instagram to show he was physically pretty swollen up, but grateful and in good spirits. “Just letting everyone know I'm home now after 6 nights in the hospital,” he posted. “Discharged from the hospital last night with a mostly full recovery expected. They're not sure about what will happen to my face yet.”
“Grateful to sleep in my bed though the nightmares are decidedly not rad,” he added.
Then ten days after he was shot, Olive gave a pair of interviews to KTVU and NBC Bay Area. He explained that he had never met and had no relationship with his shooter Cheasarack Chong, and described the experience of getting shot seven times on Ninth Street in a seemingly unprovoked attack.
"The first [bullet], when my face got hit, it felt like I had a molten cannonball in my face," Olive told NBC Bay Area. "It was like my body was in so much pain; my soul was trying to extract itself from the pain."
"I realized the severity of what was happening, and I put my hands up and I sort of tried to dodge what was impending," he added in his KTVU interview. "[The shooter] very clearly aimed at my head. Two shots that hit me in the cheek. One went up and hit my earlobe, the top of my ear. The other open split my cheek down here and split my earlobe and then that was the moment that reality became a whole different thing and my life changed forever."
"A lot of it was like, what did I do? Why me? I didn't do anything. I didn't do anything," Olive said to NBC Bay Area. "And then I kept thinking, I can't believe I'm going to die on this street."
But he didn't die on the street, thanks in large part to the help of random bystanders who took immediate medical action, including a nurse who happened to be walking by. "Literally the shirt off her back and she happened to be a nurse," he explained to KTVU. "She was like an angel. The first angel that I encountered through this entire process, and there have been many."
Olive says the Vapor Room, which dates back to the medical marijuana days in 2003 when the place was located in the Lower Haight, will remain closed for the time being so he can focus on his physical and emotional recovery. In the meantime, his friends and supporters have set up a GoFundMe for Olive’s medical bills, as he will be requiring additional surgeries.
And while his attacker Cheasarack Chong lived in the apartment building above the Vapor Room, Olive says he had never encountered the guy before, though was informed by police that Chong was in possession of a rifle, two pistols, and other weapons.
"With all that weaponry and ammunition he had, I'm sort of personally convinced he was planning something bigger," he told NBC Bay Area.
"He didn't hesitate one second to end my life, to attempt to end my life," Olive added to KTVU, admitting, "I feel safer that I don't have to worry about him now or in the future."
For the time being, Olive is suffering from swelling in his left cheek and ear, has a broken jaw and some degree of facial paralysis, a broken scapula, and a few cracked ribs. Some of the bullet shrapnel, like the PTSD, will remain in him.
Image: martinolive via Instagram
