Wawa, Ont., woman says it's the little things that truly count a year after workplace shooting
CBC
It’s been a year of relearning how to live for a 41-year-old Wawa woman.
Bridgette Hagen was shot by an unknown gunman while working at a credit union a year ago today.
Airlifted to Sudbury with catastrophic injuries, doctors were initially unsure if she would pull through.
The gunman was found dead at the scene, and Hagen said police could not uncover a motive.
She was the only one injured in the incident.
She and her husband learned months later from police that not two, as they first thought, but four separate bullets entered her body, tearing apart her thigh and pelvis, her arm and her face.
After countless surgeries, the amputation of one arm below the elbow and five months in hospital doing rehabilitation, Hagen went home to Wawa.
She had a desperate longing to be reunited with her husband and two daughters, but was unsure of how she would be received by the small community of about 2,700.
“You know, my physical changes, my mental changes,” she said. “It was just really hard to see people, and to let people see me so vulnerable.”
She said a small group even welcomed her home with a party.
Since then, life is about the small things, she said; getting dressed, having a shower, and packing lunches for her daughters.
After being told she may not be able to walk again, she is going out of the house on her own.
She has progressed from a wheeled walker to wielding two canes, able to do so with sheer grit and steel rods in her thigh and pelvis, and a brace around one foot to compensate for nerve damage.
While she will be staying at home and away from media today because of the anniversary of the shooting, she does want people to know she is progressing.
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