Issue link: https://tmcpulse.uberflip.com/i/1111486
t m c » p u l s e | m ay 2 0 1 9 25 "I was contemplating, 'Well, did he do this because he smoked a drug and he was hallucinating? Or did he do this because that's what he said he was going to do over the years?'" she said. "I finally came to the conclusion that that's what he wanted to do." When first responders arrived at the blood-spattered apartment, Thomas' mother, Janice Reeves, was still alive and urged the paramedics to take care of her daughter first. Reeves died later that night, the bullet in her abdomen causing irrep- arable damage to her organs. At the local hospital, doctors were able to stabilize Thomas and stop the bleeding from her face. Thomas remembers a nurse coming into her room to clean out her wounds. The nurse asked Thomas if she wanted the two people in the room to leave, but Thomas—who did not fully understand the severity of her injury—allowed them to stay. As the nurse carefully unraveled the bandages wrapped around Thomas' face, everyone in the room gasped. "Then I knew it was bad," Thomas said. The gunshot blast decimated Thomas' face. She lost her right eye, nose, upper top lip and most of her left side. Virtually 80 percent of her face was gone. ➟ I used to ask my nurses, 'Why did God leave me here?' I think He left me here to save more lives, to be a visual aid. I'm not saying emotional or mental abuse is any different than physical abuse, but with physical abuse ... you see this person with just one working eye. You see this person with a prosthetic nose. You see this person who lost 80 percent of her face. — CAROLYN THOMAS Domestic violence awareness advocate