He left the Philadelphia area looking forward to a new year of life, but returned home thankful just to see another day.

Chadds Ford native William Jacob “Jake” Raak was wounded in Istanbul, Turkey, on New Year’s Eve when an act of terrorism struck the Reina nightclub where he was celebrating with friends, according to a PhillyVoice staff report.

“When he got shot, the bullet hit his phone,” brother Michael Raak said. “It went from his hip to his knee, but the bullet didn’t hit any major arteries. Everyone’s just happy he’s alive and getting home pretty quickly.”

Raak, 35 and a resident of Greenville, Del., said he survived by playing dead, even after being struck.

“When he shot me, I didn’t move — I just let him shoot me,” Raak told NBC. “I was shot when I was already on the ground. He was shooting people that he had already shot.”

Read more about Raak’s encounter with terrorism from PhillyVoice here.