CHICORA — Ted E. Divers was shot in the face. He wears the scars to prove that.

The shot from a 9 mm handgun took its toll, fracturing his skull, shattering his jawbone and obliterating the pallet of his mouth.

He is facing numerous surgeries and a lifetime of recovery.

But on that fateful night June 4 outside his home on Route 38 in Oakland Township, he didn’t even know he was shot, at first.

“I heard a bang but it took five seconds to realize I was shot,” the 29-year-old Divers said. “Then I felt it. The warmness. My ears felt like they were on fire.”

Divers recounted the split second that would forever change his life Tuesday at a preliminary hearing at the office of District Judge Lewis Stoughton in Chicora.

Following the nearly hourlong hearing, Stoughton ordered Michael A. Grasak, 27, of Butler Township to face trial on attempted involuntary manslaughter, aggravated assault and reckless endangerment charges, for allegedly shooting Divers.

But Divers, during his testimony, admitted he doesn’t know who shot him.

“I never saw anyone with a gun that night,” he told Grasak’s attorney, Lee Rothman of Pittsburgh.

State police arrested Grasak several hours later, accusing him of firing the shot during a good time get-together turned bad.

Divers said the night began June 3 when he and two friends went to the Monroe Hotel in Butler. There, while drinking and talking, they met Grasak and two of his friends.

The six seemed to hit it off and about closing time about 2 a.m. June 4, they returned to Divers’ home for an after party of sorts around a makeshift fire pit.

It didn’t take long, however, before Divers got into an argument with Adam Bosco, one of Grasak’s friends.

“A little altercation happened,” Divers told prosecutor Russ Karl, a Butler County assistant district attorney.

A push, some shoving, is all, Divers recounted in more detail during Rothman’s cross-examination.

Grasak stepped in and separated the two would-be combatants.

”My client acted kind of like the peacemaker, didn’t he?” the defense attorney asked.

“Yes,” Divers replied.

Grasak and his friends were asked to leave. The trio walked down to the driveway to Grasak’s car.

But shortly after, Divers went looking for his dog and found Grasak and the others had not yet left.

“I asked them to get the (expletive) off my property,” Divers told Rothman.

Those cross words sparked a second altercation. Divers said he recalled Bosco moving toward him, around the passenger side of Grasak’s Ford Mustang.

While he believed Grasak was at the driver’s side. Divers couldn’t be sure. It was dark, he conceded, and there are no lights around the driveway.

He also acknowledged he has “problems remembering” key events that night.

Primarily, he couldn’t identify his shooter. But he recalled being shot.

“I remember hearing a loud bang,” he testified, “and my ears burning. There was blood running everywhere.”

He said he managed to make it up to his house to the front door, where his father, who also lives there, met him. The commotion outside apparently awakened the elder Divers.

Divers was taken to Butler Memorial Hospital and later flown to UPMC Presbyterian in Pittsburgh for further treatment.

Trooper Gesuele Burello testified that investigators soon identified Grasak and the others who were at Divers’ home that night.

He said Grasak was later arrested at this home and taken to the police barracks for questioning.

Grasak waived his Miranda rights and admitted he was armed with a gun that night, Burello said.

The defendant acknowledged that he placed his Smith & Wesson pistol in his waistband when he got out of his car at Divers’ home. He said he took the loaded gun with him because he didn’t know Divers or the victim’s friends.

Grasak’s recollection of the events that preceded the shooting generally backed up Divers’ account, Burello said.

But what the victim couldn’t remember about his alleged clash with Grasak, the defendant could. He claimed it began only after he tried to stop an altercation between Divers and Bosco.

When he stepped in, Grasak told Burello, the gun dropped out of his pants He picked it up with his left hand and found himself struggling with Divers.

“He admitted he hit (Divers) in the head with the loaded gun in that hand with this finger on the trigger,” Burello testified.

At some point, the gun fired, but Grasak apparently didn’t know the shot had struck Divers.

“He seemed generally surprised when he was told that (Divers) had been hit,” Burello said during cross-examination. “He thought it was discharged into the air.”

Following testimony, Rothman asked Stoughton to dismiss the attempted involuntary manslaughter and aggravated assault charges, arguing that the prosecution failed to show his client intended to shoot Divers.

But Karl countered that Grasak’s reckless behavior, “using a loaded gun as a club,” was enough to send all of the charges to court. Stoughton agreed.

Grasak remains in the county prison on $250,000 bail.