Retired Marine lost job, then car crashed into his house

In Woonsocket: A shooting, a crash and a ready Marine
01:00 AM EDT on Saturday, July 16, 2011
By Tatiana Pina

Journal Staff Writer

WOONSOCKET — Sandra Gagnon was washing clothes in the basement of her Robinson Street home Thursday night, with her dog, Tuffy, when she heard a popping sound.

Must be firecrackers, she thought. But it was followed by a big boom that shook the house “like an earthquake.”

When Gagnon peered from the laundry area, she saw the couch — which had been against the wall — now in the middle of the basement family room. Standing atop the couch was a man she didn’t know. He was bleeding.

Gagnon, 36, said Friday that she thought somebody was trying to rob the house. The man on the couch told her he had been shot. She didn’t care.

She had no idea what was happening, and the preschool teacher was worried about her family.

“Get the [expletive] out,” she told him.

Upstairs, Bradley Gagnon, a retired Marine, had been watching television with the couple’s 8-year-old son. Their daughter, 13, was in another room.

The Gagnons had already been planning to move from their home, Sandy Gagnon said, partly because they are not happy with their neighborhood and partly because Brad had lost his most recent job as a facilities manager. The crash kind of iced it for them, Sandy Gagnon said.

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A shooting a crash and a ready Marine