KANSAS CITY, Mo. -- David Holding is still in the hospital, recovering from surgery after being shot while trying to help his neighbors after they were robbed at gunpoint.

"If anybody comes to me for help, I'm willing to help, that's just the way I was brought up," Holding said.

On Nov. 10 Holding answered a frantic knock on his door. He said his female neighbors had been held up at gunpoint inside their own house near 26th Street and Campbell Avenue.

"When they came in they were hysterical, saying they'd just been robbed with their babies in their arms," Holding said from his hospital bed.

Holding said the site brought out the old soldier in him and he grabbed his gun and ran down the street, confronting the robbers who were still in the house. Holding said he fired several shots, one of which struck one of the three robbers in the backside.

Holding said while he was searching the house for more gunmen, he was shot by another one of the robbers.

"It went in my left side and lodged in my spine," Holding said.

Despite a shot that nearly paralyzed him, Holding said he wouldn't do anything different. He said that crooks are trying to take hold of his neighborhood, snatching anything from copper to cars. He said once the robbers turned a gun on innocent women and children, he said he hit his breaking point.

"It just triggered me," Holding said. "It pissed me off."

The robber that was shot has been arrested, but the other two are still on the loose. Police ask anyone with information on the robbery to call the TIPS hot line at 816-474-TIPS.