Arizona Man Narrowly Avoids Shooting: 'A Taco Saved My Life'

Ryan Bishop said he avoided injury or worse because his usually open car window was closed: "I didn’t want pieces of the taco flying around.”

Tacos! Is there anything you can’t do?

That marvel of Mexican food has at least one true believer: Tucson, Arizona, resident Ryan Bishop. He credits a taco as the reason he narrowly avoided being struck by a bullet.

Bishop was approaching the Pima County Fairgrounds entrance in his car early Sunday afternoon when suddenly the window on the driver’s side shattered. according to Tucson station KOLD TV.

“I had a very loud explosion happen in my window,” Bishop told the station. He said that at first he thought a rock broke it, and he decided to pull over and inspect.

Bad idea.

“I opened the door, took a look around it and then I hear this ‘Pop! Pop! Pop! Pop!’” he said. “So I got in my car and continued driving.”

He pulled over eventually and called the police, who soon arrived at the scene. They discovered a bullet sitting on his dashboard, and that’s when Bishop focused on the taco he had been eating when the shots rang out.

Bishop told KOLD he normally drives with his car window down with his arm on the window ledge ― the same spot where the bullet hit his car.

“I’m pretty sure [eating a] taco saved my life, or at least stopped my arm from getting blown apart,” he said. “I had the window closed because I didn’t want pieces of the taco flying around.”

The Tucson Police Department is investigating the shooting as “Criminal Damage / Malicious Mischief.”

HuffPost reached out to Bishop, who did not immediately respond.

Although the merits of tacos have been praised by poets, PBS hosts and Yelpers trying to make it as food bloggers, TheTakeout noted that Taco Bell sauce also can come in handy.

In March, an Oregon man and his dog survived five days stuck in the snow by living off Taco Bell sauce. Also in March, a Florida man’s need for more hot sauce saved his life when a car crashed into a Taco Bell outlet right where he had just been sitting.

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Before You Go

The Weird World of Tacos
Berlin(01 of08)
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Ich bin ein burrito. Tex-Mex restaurant in Berlin, 1999. Many German-Mexican restaurants were notable for their vegetarian emphasis, perhaps catering to members of the German counterculture who had sampled Mexican food while backpacking along the Maya trail. Even the beef tostadas were served atop a pyramid of salad greens.
Rome(02 of08)
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Old El Paso products in a shop window near the renowned gelato shop, Giolitti, Rome, 1997. Displays such as this one catered primarily to expatriates from the United States. Italians understandably preferred their own home cooking.
Tokyo(03 of08)
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Plastic tacos. A Tex-Mex restaurant employs the Japanese art of fake food to display fake Mexican food, Tokyo 2001. For the best taco in Japan, you have to go to La Bamba Restaurant in Osaka. The owner, Oshima Bari, was a former Japanese hippie who studied Spanish in college and lived for a year in Mexico.
Brisbane(04 of08)
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The first wave of global Mexican. Surfers were early evangelists of the taco, carrying Cal-Mex around the world on their search for the perfect wave. The granddaddy of overseas Mexican restaurants, founded on Australia's Gold Coast by Californian Bill Chicote in 1967, was called Taco Bill. Here, a rival in Brisbane, 2003.
San José(05 of08)
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Taco Bell goes global. Although many of the company's international ventures have failed, Costa Rica offers a success story. I photographed this busy store near the national university in San José in 2008, but I'm afraid I can't recommend any good Mexican restaurants in Costa Rica.
NYC(06 of08)
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Wet-Mex. Corona beers, tequila shooters, and bird-bath-sized margaritas create an alcoholic image of Mexican food in New York City, 2009. But in the past decade, Mexican migrants have created a likely restaurant scene both in the trendy Brooklyn neighborhoods of Park Slope and Dumbo as well as among the down-home taco trucks of Jackson Heights and Redhook.
Montreal(07 of08)
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Agua fresca smoothies. Palm trees and tropical fruit drinks offer a taste of street food that is "Hecho en México" to visitors at the Jean Talon Market, Montreal, 2010. Operated by a chef from Querétaro, El Rey del Taco serves great mixiotes (pit-roasted lamb).
Paris(08 of08)
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Paris al pastor. Street food becomes the new gold standard for authentic Mexican, displacing Tex-Mex stereotypes. Paris, 2012. Taco shops have begun appearing in tourist neighborhoods such as Chido in the Contrescarpe, but many insiders prefer El Nopal near the Canal Saint Martin.