Los Angeles, CA USA

Officer R.Davis aka "Randy's" Story

SECOND CHANCE

If you had a second chance at life, what would you do with it?

I never thought I would ask myself this question. I am walking proof that you have the power to transform yourself into
whatever you want.

I survived an accident that claims the life of 9 out of 10 people that suffer it. I am 1 out of 10 that is still alive! I am a survivor of a Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI).

More specifically, I was shot in the head, twice. One bullet penetrated my skull and went into my brain. The second bullet grazed the other side of my head, carving a directional scar in the left side of my head. November 3rd, 2002 was my 18th anniversary of my shooting. I call it an anniversary because I celebrate it as a second chance at life.

November 3, 1984 is my "Day of Infamy". It lives in my memory because the aftermath has been an uphill battle of the human will to survive. I have had to remake myself into something I'm extremely proud of. I know how much of a setback it has been for my life and it seems almost like 10 years of my life is missing. This is part of the damage of a TBI, picking up the pieces of your life.

Nov. 3rd, 1984, I was a 16-year-old junior at San Marcos High School in San Marcos, California. I had been at that school for only a couple of months, the new kid. I had moved to California in 1983 to live with my Dad and stepmother.

I grew up in rural Goochland County, Virginia. Growing up as a country boy, I learned hunting, shooting, and woodsman skills. I also began my desire to pursue a career in the military. I began to study weapons and as a child of the Vietnam era, I was fascinated with the military and guerrilla warfare. I wanted to serve my country this way. After moving to California, the daily target shooting and hunting ceased to exist for me.

That changed one day when I overheard a couple of schoolmates talking about going shooting. Naturally, I took an interest.

I asked my Dad if I could go and he knew how much it meant to me, so he agreed. I made the arrangements with the guys and off we went. I've rewritten these details several times throughout the years so I'll get to the heart of the incident.

We went to a canyon area then called "Elfin Forest" and hiked down through a lot of brush, trees, and rocks to an open area. We looked around for a target and found an old plastic jug. By now, the sun had set and it was dark. Teenagers do stupid things and target shooting at night definitely qualifies.

There were four guys plus myself and all but one of us had .22 rifles, one guy had a BB gun. After we all shot a few rounds at the plastic jug, we called it a night.

I told one of the guys that I wanted to be alone for a bit, it was the first wooded area I had been in since I left Virginia. It was a beautiful moonlit desert southern California night and I didn't know my life was about to become a living nightmare.

I began making my way back to my schoolmates and found all the trucks off road lights were on. As I wondered why all the lights were on, I heard a shot! Before my mind could finish asking, "What are they shooting at?" I found out. The first bullet hit me 1/4 inch from the right eye, breaking through my right temple and giving me a depressed skull fracture as it burrowed into my brain. I never felt the second bullet take a chunk of flesh from the left side of my head. At this point, the impact threw my head back and knocked me off my feet. I rolled down the side of the embankment and screamed a primal scream of agony, straight from my horrified soul.

I was beginning to process the thought, "What the HELL just happened here???" I screamed in agony at the top of my lungs, " Goddammit ! I've been shot!!" I wasn't being politically correct, I was in survival mode. I realized I was bleeding profusely from the right side of my head! Every time my heart beat, blood spurted from the wound. I didn't know I was bleeding inside my skull as well. This was all transpiring in a matter of seconds. I crawled up the side of the canyon and staggered towards the headlights.

The guys, I found out later were in shock as well. As I appeared in the lights, blood pouring down my face, soaked into my hair and clothes, I guess I was a sight. I felt like I was living in a John Wayne movie, shot and staggering around, bleeding all over the place. I was fully conscious as the truck pulled into the ER parking at Palomar Memorial Hospital, with me in the back, one arm wrapped around the roll bar and the other
holding a blood soaked handkerchief to my bleeding temple.

The hospital fortunately had a trauma unit and set about trying to keep me alive. I was fully conscious until I was put under for surgery. They contacted my parents and a neurosurgeon, Dr. Mark Stern. A CAT scan was done to determine how severe the damage was and determined that emergency brain surgery was necessary to save my life. I was 16 years old, lying in a hospital with a bullet in my brain! I was awake and enduring excruciating pain as the seconds ticked by. My parents were beside me trying their best to comfort me.

The surgery was a success. Dr. Stern removed the bullet fragments and the damaged brain matter, I was told three to four centimeters from my right temporal lob of the brain. I only spent five days in the hospital and was sent home. I was still living in a depressed, isolated world. I had a whole group of friends come to visit me in the hospital and I want them all to know how grateful I am for being there for me while I was facing life and death issues.

I managed to return to school in about two weeks, a bad move but in 1984, we didn't know any better. I was very unhappy and knowing what I know now about TBI, I had no business being back in school. Yet, I survived and managed to graduate high school with my class in 1986. I became determined to continue with a normal life and had to struggle very hard to do so. The usual happiness of a teenage life was stolen from me and I became very serious. Yet I still tried to "fit in".

I made my first attempt at college when I was 18 but was overwhelmed. I quit after my first semester at Humbolt State University in Arcata,CA. I set about working and tried going to school part at time at Palomar College in San Marcos, CA. I ended up being not successful there either. It was just too much for me to handle then. I didn't know what I wanted to do with my life at that time. I had let go of the military dream after the shooting because I rationalized that I didn't want to get shot at anymore. At 19, I actually went to a recruiter to find out about enlisting. When I mentioned the shooting, I was shown some fine print in a book that said plain and simply, "any contusion or laceration to the brain is an automatic disqualifier." I couldn't even be drafted!

With those dreams shattered, I had to figure out what else to do with my life. In 1989, when I was 21, I moved back to Virginia. Two years later, I read an article in the paper about a TBI survivor and his recovery. At the end of the article was a phone number for the Virginia Brain Injury Foundation, now the Brain Injury Association, BIA of Virginia. That was the turning point in my recovery.

For several years, I had been wandering lost, depressed, angry and bitter, working my butt off at a myriad of dead end jobs for 6.00 an hour. I shoveled crap at an animal hospital and scrubbed toilets and showers at the local health club.

Yet the health club began another important transformation for me in brain injury recovery. I got physically healthy. This also provided a great stress relief.

When I dialed the phone number for the brain injury foundation, a door opened to a new world of help and understanding. The BIA, is a non-profit organization run by family and friends of survivors of brain injuries. They helped me gain access to resources that previously were unknown to me.

I thank the Director of the BIA of Virginia, Harry Weinstock, who stuck by me for years as I rebuilt my life, and has become a personal friend. I went to support group meetings for brain injury survivors and began to finally get help. I was introduced to Dr. Michael Martelli who at the time was with the Sheltering Arms Hospital in Richmond, Va. Dr. Martelli was instrumental in the beginnings of really getting to the heart of the matter.

I was a lost TBI survivor with no direction and no resources, just trying to get by. There are many more like me out there that are just disregarded by most of the "moral majority". I was lucky enough to be capable enough to even be working and independent. It took some time to get priorities and goals, but eventually I did.
Part of my recovery was treatment at the Virginia Department of Rehabilitation Services. I was given a battery of tests and job skills profile was given to me. They also provided funding for me to return to college for a two-year degree program. I had a driving desire, by now at 23 years old, to be helping people. I first went back to college for Nursing. After my first semester, I switched to a Criminal Justice program. I realized that I wanted to try to become a law enforcement officer. Several years later, I made the dream a reality.

In 1995, at the beginning of my last semester of college, I was sworn in as a Deputy Sheriff for the City of Richmond Sheriff's Office. I was working as a jail Deputy, but it is a sworn law enforcement position. It was the dirty fingernail work.

In spring of 1995, I graduated Magna Cum Laude with my AAS in Administration of Justice! I couldn't believe it! I had worked so hard to achieve this and the hard work was paying off. I was also racing bicycles on an amateur level at this time. Riding bicycles seriously became a virtual obsession.

In fall of 1996, I was accepted to the City of Norfolk Police Academy, and graduated April 1997 as a Norfolk Police Officer! I gained an incredible amount of experience in a few short years working drug infested public housing areas. It was a battle zone at times and I honed my street level policing instincts. Because of already being a shooting survivor, now on the street as a police officer, I took the tactical training to heart. I already had the painful knowledge of what a bullet does to the human body. I approached situations with great caution looking for weapons and indications of potential violence, like any good street officer will.

I have great memories of the officers I worked alongside at the First Patrol Division. After my second marriage failed, I left Virginia and moved to Colorado to start fresh. I was a single parent of my daughter from a previous relationship and needed to get my world back in order. It took a year and a half, but today I am wearing a badge again. I am now a Federal Police Officer for the US Department of Commerce in Boulder, Colorado! Not bad for a guy who was shot in the head twice! I have also raced different types of running and cycling events.

I recognize now how blessed I am to have a second chance at life and now I am truly making the most of it.

In September of 2001, I raced in the citizen's race at the Uncle Ben's UCI World Cup Mountain Bike Championships, held in Vail/Beaver Creek, CO. I knew I wasn't going to win an award; I just wanted to compete and finish the race. I compared it years ago to this. I didn't want to wake up one day as an old man and say,” Gosh, I wish I would have done that when I was younger."

As my parents pointed out years ago when I was struggling through college and working full time, that I had the capacity and tenacity to do whatever I wanted to if I put my mind to it. They are right.

I have had to rebuild my life after suffering a traumatic brain injury, getting shot and the emotional trauma that came along with it, finding new goals and dreams, and making them a reality! No, I'm not rich with material things and loads of money, but I'm happy.

I'm in the career field that I fought so hard to be in and I take my job as a Law Enforcement Officer very seriously. I've survived some harrowing high stress incidents and have a great appreciation for where I am now. I appreciate the simple things in life and know all too well that all we take for granted can be stolen away in a split second. I simply want to bring awareness to the public the plight of many brain injury survivors. It may not have been such a traumatic incident like mine; a simple fall off a ladder can give you a brain injury.

There are many survivors out there that are exceedingly far worse off than myself. I did recover and go on to lead a productive life, however there are many more out there who are not so fortunate. The statistics are staggering at how many victims of brain injury occur every year in America.

What's worse is that they themselves or a friend or family member have to
advocate for themselves to get assistance and aid! These are people who were not born with a condition but have suffered a debilitating injury that affects every facet of life. If you or someone you know needs help after surviving a brain injury, please contact your local chapter of the BIA, Brain Injury Association of America. They do make a difference, I'm living
proof.

I would also like to thank my family and friends for aiding me in my quest for normalcy. I know it has been trying dealing with my changes in life patterns and the way I was really scattered for years. Because of those memories, I recognize how fortunate I am for what I have now. I suffered great hardships to get to the comfortable point in my life that I am at now.

I take nothing for granted and I am now in a position to start helping others deal with trauma, as my emotional toiling has strangely diminished.

I am grateful that, and my sanity.

Officer R.Davis aka "Randy"

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