I survived being shot 12 times

As told to Megan Messerly

Sunday, Aug. 9, 2015 | 2 a.m.

Ryan and I had been dating off and on for six months. We worked together at Pizza Rock. Our relationship got brought into work, where it shouldn’t have. He yelled at me in front of people and ended up getting fired as a result. He got into fights with most people he worked with, but that was the last straw. I knew it wasn’t my fault, but I still felt horrible.

We didn’t talk for a week, but we started talking again. I felt he needed my support, so we spent the whole weekend together. We got a lot of things out in the open. I felt like we were in a good place.

That Tuesday, he came over for dinner. We watched a movie, gave the kids a bath, gave them Popsicles, and then the kids went to bed.

About 2 a.m., the conversation turned to work and how it was my fault he got fired. He wanted me to say I instigated it. I said no, I didn’t, we have different recollections. He got pissed, threw a few things, grabbed his dog and left.

I texted him a few times: “Hey, we’ll talk tomorrow. Sleep well. Let’s get some help.” He texted me back, “Nothing’s ever your fault. You always lie about everything.”

I was getting ready for bed about 30 minutes later, and I heard a knock at the door. I thought, “Here we go again.”

I opened the door and he was asking something like, “Are we done?” He must have asked five or six times until he heard what he wanted to hear.

Then he was like Jekyll and Hyde. Red face. He literally looked crazy.

He pushed me down, and I thought he was going to beat me. I curled up on the floor in a defensive position, and he pulled out a gun and started shooting.

It took me a minute to comprehend what was happening. I heard it before I saw it. My brother had this cap gun when we were little, and that’s exactly what it sounded like. I screamed a bloody-murder scream I didn’t think I was capable of. Once I realized what was happening, I counted six shots. I actually was shot 12 times. It just didn’t stop, and then it did stop.

I laid there a minute, and he walked like 3 feet away from me. He clicked the gun back, put it under his chin, pulled the trigger and fell to the ground.

I laid there another minute, waiting for him to move, but he didn’t. I could hear him breathing. It was this kind of gurgling breathing. He wasn’t dead.

I looked at my arm and hand and thought, “This is not OK.” I had two large holes in my arm, and what felt like a ball in my stomach. I didn’t know if it was blood building up and getting bigger. I didn’t know if I was bleeding out.

I slid down the hallway because my phone was in my bedroom. When I got to Colin’s room, he was awake, crying, screaming, “Mom, mom.” I told him I needed him to get my phone. So he went to my room and got it. Then I told him to go back into his room, and I called 911.

I was lying in the hallway. My whole apartment was dark. The only light that was on was a porch light outside the front door. When the cops came in, it was SWAT style: flashlights, guns drawn.

The sergeant went over to Ryan and kicked the gun out of his hand. Officer Parrish was right next to me. He directed the other two officers into the bedroom to get Colin and Emily Mae, who were 4 and 2 at the time. The officers put something over the kids’ faces so they didn’t have to see Ryan on the ground.

Then the firemen rushed in, and it was like 20 questions: name, age, date of birth, spell your last name, what happened, how much do you weigh, how tall are you, what medications do you take? Once they saw the injuries, all they could do was wrap me up in gauze, give me an IV and go.

When we got to the hospital, there were people waiting. They did X-rays. When they moved me, I was in excruciating pain. I remember it burning everywhere, all over my body. I heard the doctors say, “We need to get this girl into surgery,” and I thought, “Good idea, I’m ready for a nap. Just make sure I wake up.”

When I woke up, I was in ICU. It wasn’t until the third day that I realized the extent of my injuries. I had taken a bullet to the stomach. Both of my tibias were broken. My left femur was — my doctor used the word “obliterated” — so I have a metal rod there. That left a long scar from my mid thigh to my hip, which became infected with MRSA. One bullet went in between my fingers, burning my ring finger and shattering my pinky.

One of my doctors joked I had “three flat tires.” Everyone has to keep their humor about these sorts of things. There’s always a bright side.

After, I went for rehab and learned the skills I needed to get around the house in a wheelchair. I went home three days before I turned 30 and celebrated my 30th birthday at home with my kids and my mom. I moved into my mom’s house because I couldn’t live in an apartment with two children and me in a wheelchair. I had in-home nursing and physical therapy for two more months until I got the OK to put weight on my legs.

The kids asked me in the beginning, “Why did Ryan shoot you?” We never hid anything from them. They have as much of a right to talk about it and work through it as I do. But I don’t know. I don’t have an answer.

On Ryan’s birthday last year, I wondered how his mom felt. I didn’t have any contact with them. I don’t know if they hate me, if they think it’s my fault, if they had any sign or knew him to the point where maybe they would’ve said, “Watch out.”

I’ll see something daily — not just the physical scars — and it’ll remind me of him, and I’m like, why do I have to think about that?

I went back to the apartment a few months ago, and Ryan’s car was still parked out front. It had all of those “will tow” stickers on it. It was shocking to see. I was like, “Why is his car still there? What happened to his stuff? Who went and took care of that?” That was something I never found out.

Nursing school is in my future. It always has been in the back of my head, and now it’s like, I have to do it. But walking for eight hours right now is not an option, physically. So I hang out with my kids, I do mom duty, I do my physical therapy and counseling, and that’s enough for now. We’re almost back to normal, but we’re not quite there yet.