Saved by the bell - cell phone stops bullet

Brazil has one of the world's worst telephone systems, but Brazilian, Mr Francisco de Assis Ferreira Neto, stopped complaining…

Brazil has one of the world's worst telephone systems, but Brazilian, Mr Francisco de Assis Ferreira Neto, stopped complaining the day his cellular telephone connected with a stray bullet headed for his chest.

"This is the lucky telephone. Thanks to it I'm alive," Mr Neto (48) said.

The taxi driver had been riding a bus in downtown Rio de Janeiro when a stray bullet from a failed robbery shot through an open window and lodged in the cellular telephone he was carrying inside a leather briefcase under his arm.

"The thief shot and fled. It was then that I felt the impact," Mr Neto said.

He looked inside his case and found his cellular telephone twisted out of shape with a 38-calibre bullet wedged between the keypad and the battery.

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