My Story

Today is the 37^th anniversary of the day I was shot. And so, it seemed fitting for me to write about it. Usually I spend this day alone. I don’t like to make appointments or do chores, or run errands. I don’t really like to get together with friends, though I’m more inclined to bend this rule than anything that seems like work. Usually I prefer to stay home, but spend the time on things I like to do, like reading. I’m introverted, INTF on the Myers Briggs test, and I recharge my batteries with time alone. It’s a day of reflection for me, not something to celebrate like a birthday. It’s more like the anniversary of the date someone died, something you note and can’t forget, but not necessarily something you share. I rarely mention it to anyone. I don’t cry or get emotional, I just don’t feel like being social. Well, and I want to pamper myself, just a little.

About a week ago, it occurred to me that I could write about what happened, that the topic was a good one for my blog. And so many nights this week as I’ve been trying to fall asleep, I’d think about what to say, and how to say it. And by today I found I was excited and happy about the idea. I must still have some pent up emotion related to being a victim of someone else’s stupidity or dysfunctional personality or whatever made them turn to crime. And the idea of writing, the happy feeling about writing, lifted my mood – so that for the first time that I can remember, I was looking forward to this anniversary. Funny thing.

I have told this story more times than I can remember, and I often forget who I’ve told and who I haven’t. Almost everyone wants to know why I’m in a wheelchair, but most hesitate to ask. I think they have a combination of fear that they’ll bring up some uncomfortable subject for me, perhaps a sense that I don’t want to talk about something, and a little bit of a fear that I’ll bring up an uncomfortable subject for them. But actually I’m ok with telling my story, though perhaps not ok with talking about all the peculiarities of being a paraplegic. But I’m ok with setting boundaries, and if someone were to ask something too personal, I will decline to answer. Most of the time I probably appear to not want to talk about my history, because it’s not a top issue on my mind, and I forget who I’ve told, so I assume everyone knows.

Today I find that February 5, 1973 is on my mind. It’s a nice quiet evening, raining outside, and Jim went to chess club. My cats are sleeping, and I have a glass of wine at hand. This is my story:

I grew up in Philadelphia, West Mt Airy actually, which is a community in the northwest part of the city. At that time, my parents didn’t think the public schools were very good, so decided to send me and my 2 siblings to private Quaker schools. Starting in Grade 3, I went to a school downtown, and every morning my father, my brother, Ben, (in Kindergarten then) and I would take the train into Suburban station downtown, and then walk over to school. I loved Friends’ Select, and 2 years later my sister, Johanna, joined us there in Kindergarten. The next year, her 1^st grade year did not go well for her. She wasn’t learning well, for whatever reason. The details are not important, other than that whatever happened that year, caused our relocation to other schools the following year. It probably looks like I blame Johanna or my parents for the change – for at that time I certainly did. But it was only that I loved where I was, and didn’t want to go. We transferred to 2 side by side schools in Chestnut Hill – one for girls, one for boys.

The schools are not important, but their locations are. I had learned young to love downtown, and from the day I switched schools I wanted to be allowed to go downtown on my own. At the age of 12 I thought of myself as a city girl. I went to summer classes at the Art Museum and the Franklin Institute, and loved the rocks at the Natural History Museum. And taking the train to town every day when I was younger, made me feel like I could get around, and knew where I was going. So, I kept seeing my dentist who happened to be in town, and when it came time to get braces, I went to an orthodontist he recommended – also downtown.

For about 2 years I would go into town, by train, alone, after school once a month to see the orthodontist to get my braces adjusted. I took the train home regularly every day after school anyway, trains were still a big part of my life. And I enjoyed my friends who also took the trains home. On the orthodontist days, sometimes my best friend, Judy, would go into town with me. If I had to leave early she might cut study hall to join me. Or I’d take the train earlier, and she’d catch up with me later after my appointment. We’d go shopping, or hang around the skating rink. Sometimes we’d gather up the courage to go to where the hippies hung out on Sansome St, it was the early 70s after all. My pattern was to swing by my father’s office to drop off my books, then see the orthodontist, then have an hour or so for shopping or walking around town, and then catch a ride home with Dad later. My mother worked in town too, but she was way on the other side of town, whereas my father’s office was one block from the orthodontist.

On Monday, February 5, 1973 I had an orthodontist appointment. I left school early, and took the train alone into town. I was wearing a bright green hip length ski parka, no hood, and my school uniform – navy plaid pleated wool kilt, and either white or yellow shirt, yellow or navy sweater and socks, brown shoes. It wasn’t particularly cold, but it was winter, no snow. I carried a handbag, a woven thing with a long over the shoulder strap. Imagine a multicolor woven cloth, 8 inches by 20 inches, like a placemat you might get in Mexico or Central America, fold it in half and sew up the sides. Then attach a long braided wool strap, long enough to go over your head and shoulder, so the strap is over your chest. Judy wasn’t with me that day, and so I was alone after the appointment to wander around the city.

I don’t remember the orthodontist appointment at all. I don’t think it was memorable, as the rest of that day was. I don’t remember what I was wearing either, but l remember later what things were returned to me. My memory of that day starts at about 4 PM, in a little store I liked a lot called The Peasant Garb. It was a sweet little boutique, with all kinds of brightly colored funky clothes that seemed to come from all over the world. I was drawn to that store many times, but could never afford to buy anything there, including that day in February.

The very first thing I remember was going through the door, was seeing a black person behind the counter. I remember thinking how great that was that they hired someone black. I could go into a whole political discussion here, but suffice it to say I was 15, from a liberal background, less sheltered than most girls my age, but still rather naïve, and it was 1973. I was pleased.

Then another black person, a man, with a gun came up to the man who had entered the shop before me and to me, and ordered us to go into the back room. There, there were several people laying on the floor, and I stepped over many of them to get to the other side of the storage room. I remember my heart pounding, adrenaline I suppose. A robbery, how exciting! Another man with a gun was there too, and one of them then ordered us to get out our money. Two men, one taller and thinner, the other shorter and stockier, both had guns. What really caught my eye though were the guns, or rather just one of those guns. I had never seen a sawed off shotgun before, didn’t know they existed. I just saw a really fat gun that looked huge.

I will digress here – I had gone to Quaker schools for all elementary school. Toy guns were forbidden in our house, not even cap guns. I remember my mother getting angry when my brother was given a cowboy outfit for Christmas one year. Comic books were forbidden, and we weren’t allowed to watch much TV. When I went to overnight summer camps, I would refuse to do the marksmen classes. Ben would take riflery, but I didn’t want to. So, my knowledge of guns was somewhat limited to say the least, but I did know what a pistol looked like, and this gun being waved around the room was not a pistol. So, the really fat gun got most of my attention.

When I was told to get my money out, I complied and had my wallet in my hand, with a rather meager amount of money. I don’t know how much I had, but it couldn’t have been more than a few dollars. I had had no intention of buying anything. But I didn’t know what to do – do I go forward and give them the money? Do I stay put? Should I lie down with the others?

I didn’t have time to act. The other man had a pistol, and he had cocked it and was pointing it at a man who was still standing. I believe this was their threat, that if we didn’t do what he asked, he’d shoot this customer (or sales person). For some reason that we will never know, the pistol went off. But because he wasn’t really holding it steady next to the customer’s head the bullet didn’t hit him. It hit me instead. Ironic, huh, someone who was (still is) so uncomfortable with guns?

Wrong place, wrong time. The bullet caught me in the lower neck, right side, not far above the collar bone, and exited on the left side of the top of my shoulder. The impact threw me back against some trash cans, hitting the top of my head. My wallet dropped from my hand. I remember knowing I was shot, and falling, and then thinking, “Now I’ll get to see what Hell is like,” and then very quickly reconsidering, “No, I’m not going to die.” And then I blacked out.

You can take my thoughts as a statement of what I thought my life was like, or as a thought from someone with very low self esteem. I wasn’t exactly a happy child, true. But I believe I just didn’t think of myself as good. And the second thought I had is probably more significant, I wanted to live.

I vaguely remember sirens. Later I was told that a medical student had been in the shop at that time, and had probably saved my life. The robbers (3 total, the woman I had seen first at the counter, and the 2 men) fled as soon as someone was injured. It wasn’t their intention to hurt anyone, I don’t think, they just wanted money. And the med student came over and did mouth-to-mouth, and probably put pressure on my neck wound. I am sure I looked a mess.

My next clear memory was in the ER, though at the time I didn’t know where I was. I remember people around me, and light. They were asking me if I could see, so I indicated somehow – nod of the head I think – that I could. Actually I really couldn’t see, except the light, but I didn’t want them to know this. I wanted to be able to see, and so I rationalized that seeing light counted. It’s funny how you bend the rules when pride is at stake, or denial, even when you’re a kid.

I am right handed, but my right hand was useless at that time. I couldn’t move it. Still, they were trying to figure out who I was, so they put a pen in my left hand and asked me to write on a pad of paper. They asked for my name, but letters were too hard to write. So we tried numbers. I would write something, and then they would guess. Numbers had the advantage of having fewer to choose from. A slash could be a 1 or a 7, maybe a 9, but not much else. Besides, they knew my first name – DONNA – from an appointment card from the orthodontist for my next visit. My wallet had fallen on the floor of the shop with my ID in it, but my handbag was still around my body because of its long strap, holding a few odd things. Slowly they got a phone number from me, LO4-2728. LO was for Locust, for back then all the first digits stood for a word. It was the number for my father’s office. And then I blacked out for a long time.

My next memories are from a few days later, when I was recovering in the Intensive Care Unit (ICU). But to keep the timeline going in one direction, I’ll tell about a few things that happened while I was more of less out of it.

The hospital called the number I had given them, asking if anyone there had a daughter or knew someone named Donna. It was a small architect’s office, and with a little asking around they arrived at my father. He didn’t know how badly I was hurt, but was told to come to the hospital only a few blocks away. His image was of me being hit by a truck. He first hailed a cab, but quickly figured out that in rush hour traffic he’d get there faster by running. He called my mother, and both of them were in the hospital soon. My grandparents were contacted to go to our house to take care of my siblings.

And the doctors set to work on me. Once in the OR, they quickly realized that I was a lot more hurt than they had initially thought. Perhaps someone just shot in the neck usually can’t write a phone number down? They cut my neck open, about a 5 inch gash horizontally, with one end just a couple of inches below my right ear, and the other end at the center of my throat. And what they found was that the bullet had completely severed my right carotid artery. It had to be sewn together end to end. I hadn’t bled outwardly much. I suspect that the bullet hole was so small, and there was enough swelling, that it effectively closed itself up at some point. So, they didn’t know till they cut me open that my carotid was blown open. The doctor on call that evening was relatively young, in residency, but old enough to have children close to my age, and it was hard on him. He didn’t come back to the hospital for 2 weeks after my surgery. That night they worked to save my life. And it wasn’t immediately apparent there was any other damage.

I believe I died that day on the OR table and came back. I used to have recurrent dreams of a wild looking large cat, with a red necktie. Years later, when I was in therapy, my therapist suggested I draw the cat. And the drawing doesn’t really look like a cat. It’s more human like, with long arms and legs, and a hairless face. There’s wild hair around the head, and it has a red slash on its neck and a long blood red “necktie” below that. We wondered if it was an out-of-body image. So, I contacted the hospital for copies of my records, and found out that I had coded that day and was brought back. I now believe I did die, had a near death experience, and came back. But after doing the drawing, the dreams stopped. And that’s ok with me.

They stitched me up, and stabilized me. Ran tests, did x-rays. And packed me off to the ICU, which I remember very clearly, as a scary place. I had a tracheotomy in my neck, but learned to talk by covering it with my finger. The med student that saved my life in the shop came by to visit, and others as well. They would read my fan mail. Hard for my story to not hit the papers, so I had mail from a lot of people, but most from kids at my school. Family members of other ICU patients would come to talk to me because my bed was near the entrance, and because I was more alert. One woman was older, dying of cancer, and weighing about 90 pounds and losing weight. The man to my left was senile or whatever word you are supposed to use now, and there was an ongoing struggle with him. If his hands weren’t tied down, he would yank out his IV. If his hands were tied down so he couldn’t use the urinal, he’d wet the bed. I found it funny in a catch 22 kind of way. There was a man on the other side of the nurse’s station who was in a glassed in space, with police guards outside. I never found out if he was a prisoner, or someone who would be once he was well. The scariest patient in the room was a drug addict who had overdosed, and wasn’t very happy to be there. Periodically she would break free and make a run for it, and wasn’t very quiet about her dissatisfaction about being stuck there. Whenever she acted up someone from the nursing station, or someone standing nearby that a nurse would commandeer, would come over and stand by me to reassure me. I remember feeling incredibly vulnerable.

Someone gave me a red plastic radio that was shaped like a doughnut, and taped it to my bed next to my head, and I listened to MoTown all day. Judy, who is half Chinese, managed to convince the door guards that she was family and paid a visit.

After a week I was moved to a private room, and had great care. Now I could have more visitors. My sister wasn’t as overwhelmed (she was 10 then) there as she was in the ICU. We celebrated my father’s and grandmother’s birthdays there. They allowed me to decorate the cake, which really was all I had strength for at that time anyway. They washed my hair, discovering a 2 inch scab on the back of my head. They had thought all the dried blood in my hair was from the injury, but I had really hit my head hard. My head has a dent where it shouldn’t and is bald there from the scar tissue. Luckily my hair covers it, most of the time. I was recovering slowly.

The doctors were puzzled though, why I wasn’t getting any feeling or motion back in my legs. They hadn’t seen any damage to my spine in x-rays, and a spinal tap didn’t show blood. So, a month later, they did another surgery to my back, and this time they found that the bullet had indeed gone through my spinal cord. It was a small bullet, .22 caliber, and it fit between the openings where the spinal bones overlap, without damaging my spine at all. There was 2/3 of my spinal cord damaged, full of scar tissue, at the T1/2 level.

2/3 of the cord makes me technically an Incomplete paraplegic. But for all intents and purposes, I’m a Complete para. I have no sensation or movement from just above my nipples down. If you see me moving around in my chair, and I do fidget, it’s probably my arms pulling myself forward, or my shoulders throwing my weight around. I do have some spasticity, which is part of being Incomplete, but not much, mainly happens when you touch my bare foot or a foot slides off the foot pedal of the chair.

I spent 4 months in rehab, which today is considered a luxury! Today they allow about 1-2 months tops for rehabilitation. But I had 4 months, to learn to dress, get in and out of beds and cars, to learn to intermittent catheterize myself (in other words to pee), to get used to a bowel program, all those essential daily tasks we take for granted after about age 4. I have another whole set of rehab stories.

Usually after hearing this story, or more often a shorter version of it, people want to know one thing. They want to know if the bad guys were caught. They were. Apparently they had been doing a number of this kind of robbery, but I was the first one hurt. After The Peasant Garb robbery, one of their neighbors turned them in. So, about a week later, as I was moved to the private room, police raided their house in the early hours one morning. They found merchandise from the store in the house, and guns thrown out the window outside. The men were Black Panthers, or so I was told, and the woman a drug addict.

There was a trial, at which I was pretty useless, except to make the jury sympathetic. Other people in the store got a better look at them, and were better witnesses. I spent the better part of the week sitting out in the hall talking to the detectives and witnesses, not in the courtroom. In the end they were convicted, I believe of robbery and attempted murder, among other things. I have newspaper clippings from those days, but haven’t looked at them in a long time. The men got 17 years, and if I remember right the woman got 5 years. She never held a gun. I used to get notices that they were up for parole, and did I have anything to say? But I never responded. And those notices stopped coming long ago. It is now 37 years later.

Do I feel anger towards them? Rarely, but I’d be lying if I said never, and I used to feel more anger than I do now.

Is there any thing I would like to say to them? No. I’d rather be me than them.

Honestly, I once considered trying to find them, to see who they were, if they were alive. I tried a Google search. It was impossible. There were many men with similar names, and who were clearly different people. One man with one of their names was a preacher. For all I know it was the same man. If I truly wanted to find them, I probably could, but it would be hard work, and at this point I don’t want to anyway.

I’ve thought of contacting other witnesses from that day, but aren’t sure what I would say. I imagine being in their place, and wondering what happened to me, so it feels like finding them would be more for their sake than for mine. I tried to find the med student once to say Thank You, but there’s no record of a doctor with his name, so perhaps he never finished school.

The one person from that time that I did contact was the surgeon who really saved my life, the one who sewed my carotid together. About 10 years ago, right about when I turned 40, I was beginning to think more about high blood pressure (which I don’t have), high cholesterol (ditto), heart disease, blocked arteries. All higher risks as you get older, and none of them a problem for me now. But I found myself wondering if that spot where the carotid had been sewn together, might be a weak spot later in my life. I worried that it might be more pinched than the rest of the carotid, and that cholesterol or plaque might deposit there. So, a neck ultrasound was done, and they couldn’t even tell where the injury had been. The doc had done that good a job. So, I figured out the doctor’s name, and found him, to thank him in a letter. He called me back right away, for he remembered me well, remembered my family too. And he said it was his first surgery of that type, though he did many more later. He had retired, and is about my parents’ age or a little younger, and he had kids about my age too. He’s the one who told me it was a tough surgery for him emotionally, and he was really pleased to know I was still alive and well. He invited me to his home, if ever I was in Philadelphia again. I haven’t taken him up on the offer, and probably won’t. Saying thank you and telling him how good a job he’d done was enough for me.

I’m not generally an angry person. I may complain and worry, but I don’t like confrontation or even the feeling of anger. It scares me. But if I had to pick some things to be angry at, it would be first of all at a system that creates people who feel a need to commit violent crimes, and allows people to carry weapons. And then it would be at our world that doesn’t really support people with disabilities, our prejudice against age, ugliness and deformity. People with disabilities have a much harder time getting jobs, making fair pay, getting housing or around town. The ADA has helped, but it isn’t enough.

And for most of us, our disability isn’t our fault. Perhaps we are born with a disability, then perhaps you can say it’s the parents fault? Not usually true. Or we are victims of violent crime or accidents. Sometimes the newly disabled is lucky, and not only are they not dead, but they can point a finger at some corporation who is at fault and will compensate them monetarily for some of the injury. There is no way that money can possibly give a quadriplegic back their ability to walk, Christopher Reeves notwithstanding. So, no amount of money is enough. But having a disability is expensive, if not personally, to society, and money does help. In my case I had a small settlement from the store I was shot in. I call it “pity money” because it paid for 2 years of college and was a small down payment on my first house. Gone long ago. I am sure I would not be able to get health insurance if I weren’t married.

But, money aside, I still do have some pent up feelings about being disabled. I have spent a lot of time this week arranging travel plans for this coming trip, that would not have been necessary if I didn’t use a wheelchair. Multiple emails for tours in ports in Argentina. Multiple calls for permission to fly on airlines. Etc.

That one day in February 1973 changed my life in a flash, perhaps for the better, perhaps not. But in any case, it wasn’t a change I wanted, nor is it one I would wish for anyone else. I may do the same things as others – kids, marriage, divorce, work, have friends, travel. But every part of it is colored by my disability in some way. And so, at least once a year, I respect this anniversary. A reminder of how life can change quickly and without notice.

Next post, hopefully, from Argentina.