Lewiston, Maine, shootings survivor Ben Dyer shares his story - The Boston Globe

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Ben Dyer was tossing bean bags during an evening game of cornhole when a sharp popping sound burst out, cutting through the easy banter and familiar thuds of the wooden boards at Schemengees Bar & Grille. The players looked at each other in panic. Pop. Pop. Pop. Dyer and everyone around him dropped to the ground. They tried to stay low, out of sight. The shots didn’t stop.

Dyer watched as the wall in front of him shattered into pieces and he felt an excruciating surge of pain as a bullet tore through his right arm. The 47-year-old father of two young children knew he had been hit. He tried to apply pressure on his arm as the blood gushed out. The shooting stopped for a minute, and Dyer rolled onto his stomach. When he looked up, his eyes locked on the face of the gunman, later identified as Robert R. Card II, whose rampage through Lewiston, Maine, that late October night would leave 18 dead and at least a dozen more injured.

Keela Smith puts a blanket on Ben Dyer before he ate a sandwich she made for him.John Tlumacki/Globe Staff

Card was just 15 yards away. He pointed his assault rifle and fired another round. Dyer, instinctively holding his hands in front of his face, was hit again, the bullet ripping through his left hand and then the right.

He tried to appear dead. As he lay on the ground, burrowing his head into his battered arm, Dyer thought of his kids, 12-year-old Liam and 10-year-old Zoe. He thought of his girlfriend, Keela Smith, who he had been dating for two years. They needed him.

The shooting spree seemed to last only a few minutes, then Card was gone. Clinging to consciousness, Dyer asked a person near him for help, showing him how to apply a tourniquet to his arm with a shoelace. Emergency responders soon arrived. He gave them a detailed description of Card, specifying his height, weight, and facial hair. There was no time to wait for an ambulance. Dyer was placed in the back of a pickup truck of a Maine game warden, who rushed him to Central Maine Medical Center, a few minutes away.

Keela Smith checks the stomach stitches of her boyfriend, Ben Dyer.John Tlumacki/Globe Staff

Dyer awoke two days later in the intensive care unit. Somehow, he remembered it all, especially the words he repeated to himself as he waited to be rescued: “I need to live for Liam and Zoe. Liam and Zoe need you. Keela needs you. You gotta get through this. We got to do this. Be strong. Get through it.”

When he opened his eyes, Smith, 47, was there, standing beside him as his tubes were removed. His children visited a couple of days later. They knew what had happened, but Dyer kept his arm covered so they wouldn’t see how hurt he was. They brought maple doughnuts, his favorite, flowers, and handmade cards and posters.

“I saw my beautiful girlfriend,” he recalled, his voice wavering with emotion. “When I got to see all three of them, it was surreal. My whole family was behind me.”

On Monday, after two and a half weeks and four surgeries, Dyer was discharged from the hospital. Now recovering at home in Auburn, he said that while the tragedy in many ways has broken his life in two, the before and after, it has not broken him.

“My life is changed forever,” he said. “But it’s not over. And I’m not gonna let this event ruin my life.”

Dyer knows for a fact that he was shot at least twice. The doctors couldn’t be sure of the exact count. But they figured that Dyer was hit, either directly or by ricocheting bullets, four times or more based on other wounds he has.

He was fortunate to survive. The bullets went through his body without hitting bone or major organs. But his right biceps and triceps were almost entirely removed and he lost his index finger. It might take six months to know if the skin, nerve, and muscle grafts to the arm were successful. He may need more surgeries and he will never regain full function in his arm.

Through it all, Smith’s support has been steadfast, he said, lifting his spirits with her presence alone.

A radiologic technologist, she was in the middle of a shift during the shootings. When she heard he was hurt, she abandoned everything, driving more than two hours to the hospital.

In words of tender admiration, Dyer recalled how she was there for him for whatever he needed. She drove to the store to buy him Red Bull the second doctors said he could have some, helped him to the bathroom in the middle of the night. The only time she left his side was to collect his mail and take care of chores at his home.

Smith returned to work after he was discharged. She was already back on Friday.

“She was everything. She was a fixture,” he said. “I’m just in awe. She has sacrificed so much to be by my side.”

Ben Dyer with his children, Liam and Zoe, after his son's band concert Wednesday evening.Ben Dyer

The two have known each other since childhood and went to the same middle and high schools. At the height of the pandemic, Dyer became known for buying flowers at the local grocery store and gifting them to strangers shopping, a gesture of connection in lonely times.

Touched by his kindness, Smith called him on FaceTime one night. They started talking regularly and eventually met for a date.

“That’s the end of that story,” he said with a laugh.

His children live with their mom about 45 minutes away and they normally stay with him a couple nights a week. He has called them nonstop in recent weeks, and on Wednesday, Dyer went to see his son’s band concert. His daughter, who has been having a harder time with the situation, was quick to give him a hug and kiss. She didn’t leave his side, bringing over her friends to introduce them.

“It was very good,” Dyer said of the outing. “It’s important that I have a focus. That’s been the focus from day one. Even when I was laying there: it was survive for them.”

So, too, has the cornhole community stood by him.

Members of his cornhole league, a close-knit group that gathered regularly at Schemengees, have rallied to support the loved ones of those lost and those who survived. Since the shootings, groups locally and nationally have held charitable events for those affected, including Dyer.

He has played with the “Maineiacs” for more than four years and likened the group’s bond to that of a “motorcycle group — where they do everything for each other.”

“We wear jerseys. We wear patches. And we’re proud to wear them. It’s an honor to have them — to be part of the group,” he said. “You couldn’t ask for a better group of people.”

An avid outdoorsman, Dyer has vowed to himself that he will hunt and fish again. That he will play catch with his son and cornhole with his friends.

Ben Dyer posing with a "Maineiacs" sign, the group he plays cornhole with. Ben Dyer

While he was in the hospital, his sister started a GoFundMe campaign on his behalf — raising more than $100,000. As someone who would “never ask anything of anybody,” Dyer said he is still somewhat embarrassed, although deeply grateful.

Dyer knows his recovery will be difficult, but he is determined to be positive. He’s not sure when he can return to his job with Poland Spring as a dock coordinator or when he’ll be able to drive again. He will seek out a range of therapies: occupational, physical, and mental.

He said he will need to discuss the traumatic events he experienced to get his “mind straight emotionally.” For himself and for his children.

“I have two young kids. They mean the world to me. They need their Dad. And their Dad’s gonna be there for them no matter what,” Dyer said. “I’m not letting this one situation and this one individual destroy my life.”

Central Maine Medical Center doctors, nurses, and team members lined the halls to pay tribute to Ben Dyer.Central Maine Medical Center

On Monday, staff lined the halls and held their hands over their hearts in tribute as Dyer was wheeled down to the hospital entrance. He was overcome with emotion, mostly gratitude. It should have been the other way around, he thought. They did all the work.

There are two more shooting survivors at the hospital, and Dyer wants to be there when they are discharged, to celebrate the moment with them and honor those that made it possible.

“I don’t think when I showed up they expected me to come out of that place,” he said. “But they did the best job in the world and I was able to walk out of that place on my own two feet.”

With his children and partner by his side, Dyer sees opportunity amid unimaginable loss, a chance to be a better person, to be there for others the way they were there for him. He has no clue what the future holds. But maybe this moment could prove to be a “calling,” inspiring him to decide what he wants out of life.

“This is a new beginning for all of us,” he said. “And we’re going to do it together.”

Shannon Larson can be reached at shannon.larson@globe.com. Follow her @shannonlarson98.