About the Survivors

JANAE WRIGHT

While being wheeled into the ambulance on the stretcher, I looked the EMT in his eyes and told him, “Please don’t let me die, this will crush my family!” All I could think about is how hurt my loved ones would be knowing that I passed during my pregnancy.

My name is Janae Wright. I’m 28 years old, and this is my story of surviving gun violence.

The day was February 8, 2021. It was a bitterly cold day, as we were expecting severe winter weather to sweep our area. It started like every other Monday for the past several years. I woke up and began my morning routine. Despite being 8 weeks pregnant and experiencing some morning sickness, I was ready to tackle the day. I began my daily commute to work around 1:30 PM, and as I was approaching my employer’s parking lot, I was involved in a car accident.

I was shaken by the wreck, but quickly examined myself and determined I’d sustained no injuries. I checked that everyone in the other car was okay, and we discovered that minimal damage had been done to our cars. I continued on with my workday.

As I entered work and clocked in, I was visibly upset. My superiors comforted me and instructed me to call my doctor to see if I should be evaluated. I made the call, and my doctor informed me that as long as I had no visible signs of problems, the baby would be fine. I felt relieved but still unsettled knowing that my unborn child may have been harmed and that it could be a few hours before any signs of damage would show.

I tried my best to turn the day around and went about my work tasks as if everything was okay. Not long into my shift, I was called into our general manager’s office. She offered me a promotion and an opportunity to run our sister property in Daytona Beach, Florida. Naturally, I was excited because I was looking to move up with the company now that I was an expectant mother. Getting this opportunity assured me that everything was falling into place and cleared my mind of any anxiety I had about the accident. The rest of the day zoomed by, and as 10:00 PM approached, I gathered my things to head home.

I parked on the street in front of my home. My neighbor to the right was my maternal first cousin who has been like a sister to me my entire life. The house to the left had been vacant for many years, which unfortunately meant it drew unwanted guests from time to time. February 8, 2021 was one of those times.

I noticed an SUV in the alley with its headlights on. I didn’t think much of it because the house had recently been purchased and the new owner had begun renovations. I exited my vehicle and noticed a gentleman walking the fence line. By the time I made it to my porch, he had jumped the fence and was headed toward my house. Under no impression that he was there to cause harm to me, I started to put my keys in the door. Before completely turning my back to him, I noticed he was rapidly approaching. I began to ask, “Can I help you?”

Before the words could leave my mouth, he was in front of me with a gun drawn in my face.

He demanded that I give him my purse. Before I could even hand it over, he shot me. In shock and disbelief, I exclaimed, “Oh my god, he shot me!” He continued to shoot me multiple times in my mid-section. After what I counted to be the third and final bullet to hit me, I dropped to the ground and an intense burning sensation began in my left leg. As I laid there soaked in my own blood, I screamed, “Just take the fucking purse!” and threw it in his direction.

He started to run, firing several more shots before ending the attack and leaving the scene. I tried to run to my cousin’s house so I could make it to her doorstep and alert her security camera. I could only run about 4 steps before falling in the snow-covered grass and crawling with my bare hands digging into the mud to hoist myself up.

I screamed as best I could for my neighbors to come help me. I shouted, “Mr. Dennis help me! Ms. Sherry, I’ve been shot!” Moments later Mr. Dennis and his wife came to my side and called 911. As more neighbors came outside and began to crowd around me, I was breathing deeply and trying to keep my focus on staying alive.

I started demanding for someone to call my father, because I was afraid these were my final moments.

Somewhere between the time the last bullet hit me and my neighbors rushing to my aid, I began to feel what I describe as my soul leaving my body and attempting to make the transition from life to death. I wanted my father to be aware of what was happening to me and for him to know that I made every effort to not leave him. He was one of the few people who knew I was pregnant. I couldn’t imagine how he would have felt losing not only me but his first and only grandchild as well.

Thankfully, Ms. Sherry was able to make out the phone number I was repeating and informed my father about what happened. Before I knew it, police had arrived on the scene followed by the EMTs. They began to assess my injuries and tried to keep me calm and awake. I can still remember hearing the officer asking me how far along I was in my pregnancy and ensuring me that I was going to be okay. I tried my best to answer their questions, but I was struggling and beginning to feel weaker.

In what felt like seconds, I arrived at the University of Louisville Hospital. Once evaluated by the trauma team, I learned I had been shot six times. One bullet shredded my femoral nerve, causing temporary paralysis in my left leg. Though I was rattled and afraid, I knew I had to push forward for the life I had growing inside me.

On September 1st, 2021, my healthy baby boy Javien was born! He was my focus as I fought to survive, and he is my focus today. I will never stop pushing forward for him.

BRITTNEY THOMAS

On December 1, 1997, I became a survivor of one of the nation’s first school shootings. I was just 15 years old and a freshman in high school.

Like every other morning, at 7:42 AM my friends and I headed off to our school’s morning prayer circle. We took prayer requests and bowed our heads to pray for the day ahead. As the words “Amen” were spoken, a gun shot rang out behind me. I saw my friend Nicole fall to the floor. She had been shot in the head.

I turned around to see where the gunfire was coming from. The shooter was just a few feet away, and I was staring straight down the barrel of .22 caliber gun. Immediately, shock set in and I froze as the gunman continued shooting everyone around me. As blood from wounded classmates began to pool around my feet, another shot was fired. I felt a shove from behind. It was my friend Jessica. She had just saved my life by knocking me down as the bullet flew over my head.

Jessica and I crawled towards a door and huddled together on the cold tile floor hoping we wouldn’t be shot next, hoping that the shooter couldn’t see us as we tried to be invisible behind a glass door. While lying on the floor, gunshots still echoing just a few feet away, I could see that my friend Nicole wasn’t breathing anymore.

With nowhere left to run, Jessica and I laid flat on the floor watching helplessly as the gunman continued on rampage. When the shooting finally ended, eight people had been critically shot, three of whom died, including my friend Nicole. Somehow, I had managed to escape physically unharmed.

When it came time for the trial of the gunman, I was interviewed by many detectives and several different attorneys. I was even later called to testify. On the first day of the trial, the shooter entered an Alford plea, and my testimony was no longer needed. Part of me was glad, but part of me wanted to speak out and tell everyone what I had witnessed. I felt if I could speak out against what I had witnessed, it would help give me some closure. During one of the meetings at the attorney’s office, I heard about something called a victim’s impact statement – a chance for victims of a crime to tell the judge and the perpetrator how their actions affected them. I really wanted to be given this opportunity and use my voice in this way.

I will never forget the response when I asked about giving a statement. The attorney looked at me with a look of confusion and said, “No, you don’t get to do that. You’re not a victim.”

It was explained to me that in order to be considered a “real victim” I had to be injured physically. I didn’t understand this logic. How was I not a victim? I had watched my friends get shot around me. It didn’t make sense. But at the time, I remember thinking that maybe he was right. Maybe I wasn’t a victim. Maybe I had no right to feel that way.

For years, I felt that my story didn’t matter. I didn’t even think I had a story…at least not one worth sharing. I struggled with every emotion that surfaced. I struggled with calling myself a survivor, because to be a survivor wouldn’t I first need to be a victim? Because my wounds were invisible to the outside world, I somehow felt I was less.

It took almost 15 years for me realize that what I was told that day wasn’t true. The first realization came when a friend referred to me as a survivor of a school shooting. I tried to correct her, saying I wasn’t really a survivor. My friend looked at me and without any hesitation said, “Well you were there, you witnessed horrible things and you survived. So in my book that makes you a survivor.” It was the first time anyone had validated what I went through. That was the beginning of me reclaiming my story and redefining the ending.

Over the past several years I have begun to embrace the title of survivor and use my voice and my story to help those who feel invisible. It happened in a most unusual way. I became a CASA (court appointed special advocate). CASA volunteers are appointed by judges to advocate for the best interest of abused and neglected children in court and other settings.

My first case ironically involved a 15-year-old girl, the same age I was when the school shooting occurred. I vividly remember my first day in court as her CASA. While walking up the stairs, my chest began pounding and my vision suddenly became spotty. I wanted desperately to run back out the door. But I couldn’t. It wasn’t just about me this time. It was about a child lost in the system and her right to have a voice in the courtroom where her future would be decided.

I went to bathroom to gather myself emotionally. When I glanced in the mirror, I saw the reflection of a scared teenage girl. The same teenage girl who once went to a big court house to testify against her perpetrator but never got a chance to use her voice and was told she couldn’t speak because she wasn’t a victim.

I walked out of the bathroom and into the courtroom still afraid, but determined to use my voice for a child who felt invisible to everyone around her. Since that day I have been blessed to be a CASA for 47 children ranging in age from 2 weeks to 18 years old. Becoming a CASA has not only allowed me to be a voice for children in need, but it has helped me find my own!

Looking back over the last several years I’m amazed at the power that came into existence when I finally realized my story mattered, when I no longer felt the need to prove that my wounds and scars were real.