Mobile phone deflects bullet

A handyman who was shot at point-blank range after a sacking dispute avoided serious injury when his mobile phone deflected the bullet.

Juan Camarena was sweeping the floor in a Harlem apartment building when an unnamed gunman fired on him from a metre away, the New York Post reported.

It said Camarena was hit when a building supervisor, irate over being replaced, shot him.

Camarena climbed up a floor when he felt a burn near his stomach as the bullet hit the Nextel phone tucked in a jacket pocket.

"Thank God for the phone," said Camarena, 54, who escaped with only a scratch.