“U refused to let me die.”
That is what rap superstar Lil Wayne said in part, about the New Orleans Police Officer who saved his life when he was a young boy.
Former New Orleans police officer Robert Hoobler, 65, passed away Friday at his home in Old Jefferson. It is unclear the exact cause of death but family members tell reporters Hobbler had health issues.
Back in 1994 when Lil Wayne, whose birth name is Dwayne Carter Jr., was 12 years old he accidentally shot himself in the chest while playing with a handgun at his mother’s Hollygrove apartment.
Hoobler was a responding officer to the shooting. When he arrived on the scene he found the future rap star bleeding out on the kitchen floor and sprung into action. Hoobler held the young boy in the back seat of a police cruiser while another officer drove them to the hospital because an ambulance would not have made it to the scene in time to save the boy.
On Monday, Lil Wayne wrote in a social media post:
Everything happens for a reason. I was dying when I met u at this very spot. U refused to let me die.
Everything that doesn’t happen, doesn’t happen for a reason. That reason being you and faith.
RIP uncle Bob. Aunt Kathie been waiting for u. I’ll love & miss u both and live for us all.
Hobbler joined the New Orleans Police Department in 1988 and was 41 years old when fate led him to save Lil Wayne’s life.