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Cabdriver shot eight times is back at work next day

JACKSONVILLE - A cabdriver shot eight times, including several times in the chest, escaped serious injury and was back behind the wheel the next day.

Jimmy Harris, 49, picked up a man in his mid 20s about 1:30 a.m. Sunday at a Jacksonville bus station. The man wanted a $5 ride, but when they got to the destination, the passenger showed a gun, demanded his money back and opened fire.

Harris said the man got off two rounds in his chest and one in his arm before he reached for the gun. The attacker pulled the gun back and Harris jumped from the cab and ran. The shooting continued.

"I could feel the bullets going in my toe and in my leg and in my arm," he said.

Harris escaped, then began knocking on doors. At the fourth house, a woman answered his knock and called for help. Harris collapsed on her porch.

Rescue personnel rushed him to a hospital. Doctors found no vital organ hit - the bullets nicked him, went through him or lodged in fatty tissue, he said Tuesday.

After 12 hours in the hospital, doctors told Harris he could go home or stay the night. He went home, then decided to start driving again Monday afternoon.

"I can stay home and be sore or I can sit in the cab and be sore," he said Tuesday.

PALM COAST - Presidents of Florida's public universities discussed on Wednesday the possibility of freezing fall 2004 enrollment for freshmen at 2003 levels, a move that could turn thousands of students away from 11 universities.

The idea, which comes after state budget cuts that university presidents lobbied against, was floated by University of Central Florida president John Hitt at a meeting of the presidents here, the Orlando Sentinel reported today.

The presidents said they will consider an enrollment cap at their next meeting, not yet scheduled.

State budget cuts and a lack of funding to handle new enrollment have left the universities unsure how many students they can afford. Lawmakers last month cut university budgets by $40-million, opting not to provide money for an expected 22,000 new students enrolling this fall.

"We can't continue to grow at these levels without (state) enrollment funds to support it," Dan Holsenbeck, a University of Central Florida vice president, told the Sentinel. Calls late Wednesday seeking comment from the governor's office were not returned.

TALLAHASSEE - Florida State University president T.K. Wetherell headed to Montana on Wednesday for a 10-day vacation, buoyed by news that there is no sign of cancer after nine weeks of radiation treatments at the Mayo Clinic in Jacksonville.

In an e-mail to FSU trustees, the first-year president said he completed treatments for prostate cancer Tuesday and received "a very, very good prognosis." Blood test results were normal, he wrote, including one showing the desired drop in the level of a prostate-specific antigen.

"I'm looking forward to totally refocusing on FSU" after resting up from the treatments, he wrote. The cancer was detected in early February during an annual physical exam, just a month after Wetherell began his presidency.