One summer night, a single gunshot nearly ended the life of a beloved performer with a soulful voice. The bullet tore through glass, grazed one man’s face, and lodged in the singer’s temple. Remarkably, the slug had stopped just short of his skull.
Throughout it all, the musician stayed conscious, spoke calmly, and was released from the hospital only eight hours later. As he later put it, doctors told him, “You’re the luckiest unlucky bastard we ever met,” per Goldmine Magazine.
The night Marc Cohn almost died
Marc Cohn, the Grammy-winning singer-songwriter best known for the hit “Walking in Memphis,” was the one who survived that gunshot on August 7, 2005, in Denver, Colorado, after he performed at the Denver Botanic Gardens.
As Cohn’s tour van headed back to a downtown hotel, a man fleeing police, later identified as Joseph Yacteen, ran into the street and tried to carjack the vehicle. When the driver, Cohn’s tour manager Thomas Dube, refused to stop, Yacteen fired through the windshield.
Despite the head wound, Cohn stayed conscious, warning his bandmates to duck, and even spoke to medics, all the while bleeding from the face. The police captured Yacteen hours later after a tense standoff at an abandoned house, charging him with attempted murder and robbery.
A near-fatal miracle: eight hours and one bullet
Doctors at Denver Health Medical Center explained that the bullet had slowed after passing through the windshield and grazing Dube, preventing a fatal head wound. The bullet stopped just shy of penetrating Cohn’s skull, allowing surgeons to remove it without major brain surgery. Cohn’s hospital stay lasted only eight hours before he was cleared to leave.
Reflecting on the event years later, he said his survival was nothing short of a divine intervention. While his body healed, the trauma shook him to his core, forcing him to re-examine his priorities concerning his career and his private life.
From “Walking in Memphis” to walking away from near-death experience
Already a well-known figure in American music, Cohn’s debut album earned him the 1992 Grammy Award for Best New Artist, and “Walking in Memphis” is now an enduring radio staple. In late 2024, Cohn disclosed that he had been living with Parkinson’s disease since around 2020, a diagnosis he kept private for years.
Despite the challenges, he continues to tour, record, and perform, with several dates still scheduled through the end of 2025. Twenty years after that Denver night, Cohn remains a survivor in every sense: a man who’s faced a gunman, a diagnosis, and the fragility of life itself, and keeps on singing.
