LAS VEGAS (KTNV) — An emotional reunion between a 1 October survivor and medical staff took place on Friday that some might even call a medical miracle.
Step by step, Jovanna Calzadillas has been making strides in her recovery and checking off milestones in her nearly six-year journey to recovery. She sat down with me on Friday to reflect on the night she was shot in the head.
"I had to learn how to walk again and talk again," she told Channel 13's Paulina Bucka. "Just like everything. Like a baby."
During the Route 91 Harvest Festival on Oct. 1, 2017, a bullet punctured Calzadillas' brain and traveled through three lobes.
Her husband, Frank, told me, "When I saw her, she had a tube in her mouth with a bandage. And the first doctor I spoke to said, 'Hey, there's nothing we could do for your wife. She's not going to survive."
For two and a half months, Frank kept vigil by his wife's bed as Jovanna lay in a coma. Until one day, he was tasked with the unthinkable.
A doctor would approach Frank to inform her that there was a 50/50 chance that his wife would survive her injury and that she could save other people's lives by being an organ donor.
"I thought we made the wrong decision," he told me. " It was hard because we didn't know what the outcome was going to be, and that's what we struggled with the most."
However, the struggle would finally come to an end in a sweet moment that was captured on camera.
"I think I remember singing Happy Birthday, and it was my aunt's birthday," she told me. "And she was loving it."
Calzadillas was wheelchair-bound for nearly three years and only started learning how to walk two years ago. This past week, she needed additional foot surgery for yet another complication from the shooting.
In the face of evil, the darkness did not prevail. For Jovanna, it's another reason for her to keep fighting to reach that next step of being independent.
