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I was shot when I was nine years old. My message to survivors: there’s hope

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I was shot when I was nine years old. My message to survivors: there’s hope
Lifestyle
Source: The Guardian
Author: Edith Langford with photographs by Camille Farrah Lenain
Published: Jan, 23 2025 13:00

The recovery period was grueling and painful but it gave me the unexpected gifts of resilience and empathy. The day after I turned nine, 27 August 1961, I conquered the bicycle. After weeks of wobbly, failed attempts while on vacation at my older cousin Lillian’s house in Michigan, I had finally done it! I got on that bike and away I went. I turned a corner without falling and rode back to the porch, where my friends whooped and hollered in celebration.

[a woman holds an old newspaper cutting]
Image Credit: the Guardian [a woman holds an old newspaper cutting]

The cheers faded suddenly. Everyone stared at me. Lillian, zombie-eyed with her mouth open, held a shotgun pointed downwards. Somehow, I hadn’t heard it. My skinny body contorted. My blue floral shorts set with tiny ties at the shoulders was now crimson.

[a portrait of a woman with her hand on her chest]
Image Credit: the Guardian [a portrait of a woman with her hand on her chest]

“Lillian, you shot me!” I yelled. “Call the police!”. The blast of Lillian’s shotgun, intended for her husband, shredded my right kidney, appendix and large intestines. A suction pressed on my back as the blood gushed to the floor; the smell of iron overwhelmed. That shot caused permanent tendon and nerve damage, intestinal devastation and temporary paralysis.

[a doll and some red yarn]
Image Credit: the Guardian [a doll and some red yarn]

Each shooting tragedy in the US takes me back to that porch. In recent years, I am back in that place far too often. In 2024, 250 children were killed – and 40,850 deaths due to gun violence were counted, according to the Gun Violence Archive. In the ambulance that August day, I asked the paramedic: “Am I going to die?”.

[a woman holds an old photo]
Image Credit: the Guardian [a woman holds an old photo]

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