Irwin airman's recovery from gun wounds called miracle

When Bruce and Paula Schneider heard their serviceman son had been shot by a terrorist in Germany, the Irwin couple feared the worst.

But two days later, Air Force Staff Sgt. Kristoffer Schneider, 25, was laughing and joking with his family as he recovered from bullet wounds to the forehead and buttocks.

"The most amazing thing is the injury to his head," Paula Schneider said. "For that bullet to travel through his head, through his face, and not do any damage was a miracle."

The Schneiders were providing an update on their son's condition to fellow congregants at Norwin Christian and Missionary Alliance Church, who had been praying for Kristoffer since the March 2 attack.

Kristoffer Schneider, a 2003 Norwin High School graduate, was injured when 21-year-old Arid Uka, who was apparently motivated by radical Islam, opened fire on an American military bus at the Frankfurt airport. Two other serviceman were killed, and a fourth survived.

Bruce Schneider said that his son showed courage in attempting to stop Uka before he could shoot anyone else.

"He got up, and I think that's when he took the second round," the father told his fellow parishioners.

He said that authorities told them that Uka's gun jammed, with nine rounds left in the clip.

"He could have done a lot more damage," Bruce said.

After the couple learned about the attack from Kristoffer's wife, Amanda, they rushed to get passports and join him at Ramstein Air Force base in Germany, where he had been en route to a deployment in Afghanistan.

"The first two days were very tough, because we couldn't get any information," Bruce said.

When they learned their son had been shot in the head, he said, "your first thought was, what are we going to have left?"

According to their son's doctors, Paula said, one bullet hit his buttocks, missing any vital organs. The second entered his forehead and passed through his brain, before taking a U-turn through the muscles around his right eye, then his sinus, winding up under his tongue.

"How can a bullet do a U-turn unless it was guided by the hand of God?" Paula said.

After undergoing surgery to reduce brain swelling and repair the damage in the bullet's path, Kristoffer was out of a coma the next day, drinking liquids and talking, his parents said. The bullet apparently caused no serious brain damage, and it missed his optic nerve, so he retains some sight in his right eye.

Kristoffer has been transferred to a military hospital in the United States, and his parents said that, while he will be in rehabilitation for a few months, he can see and speak, and it appears that his memory and reasoning are intact.

The couple, who called their son's recovery "a miracle," thanked the congregation for their prayers.

"Everybody knew somebody else, and he was put on prayer chains around the country. He was prayed for around the world," Paula said. "I just wish we could thank the world."