"Alexis Goggins climbed aboard a special bicycle and maneuvered through hospital hallways, beginning the months of physical therapy she needs to recover from six gunshot wounds.
To many people, the soft-spoken 7-year-old is a hero after she threw herself across her mother just as a gunman was about to shoot the woman in an SUV.
"An angel is what I call her," Seliethia Parker said of her daughter.
After more than two months in the hospital and six surgeries, Alexis was recently released. She returns twice a week for physical therapy.
The young girl bears several scars from the Dec. 2 shooting, including a long, thin surgical line stretching from one side of her hairline to the other. Her right eye, which was blinded in the attack, has also been removed.
During rehabilitation, she rides a bicycle designed to be pedaled with a person's hands and plays hand-eye coordination games.
"I'll be good for therapy," Alexis promised her mother before bounding back to the games.
Alexis speaks little about the shooting.
"She remembers bits and pieces, but she's not really talking about it much. It's like she's blocking it out or something," said Parker, 30."
Tuesday, February 26, 2008
Sunday, February 24, 2008
Hero is recovering
"DETROIT -- Nearly three months ago Alexis Goggins filled her days playing with dolls and having tea parties when she wasn't in school. Now the 7-year-old is learning to cope with physical and occupational therapy sessions each week as she works to recover from multiple gunshot wounds after trying to defend her mother.
"Our life has been flipped upside down. But remarkably Alexis still has the same great spirit," her mother Seliethia Parker, 32, said Wednesday. "She's my angel."
On Dec. 2, Parker was held at gunpoint by former boyfriend Calvin Tillie shortly after midnight at a gas station on Seven Mile. When Tillie began shooting, Alexis threw herself between the gunman and her mother. The first-grader, who was shot six times, lost her right eye and has undergone multiple surgeries, was hailed as a hero. "
"Our life has been flipped upside down. But remarkably Alexis still has the same great spirit," her mother Seliethia Parker, 32, said Wednesday. "She's my angel."
On Dec. 2, Parker was held at gunpoint by former boyfriend Calvin Tillie shortly after midnight at a gas station on Seven Mile. When Tillie began shooting, Alexis threw herself between the gunman and her mother. The first-grader, who was shot six times, lost her right eye and has undergone multiple surgeries, was hailed as a hero. "
A Detroit girl who jumped in front of a hail of bullets to protect her mother from an enraged gunman Saturday night is being hailed as an “angel from heaven.”
Alexis Goggins, 7, was hit protecting her mother Selietha Parker, 30, after Parker's ex-boyfriend Calvin Tillie, 29, forced the pair and family friend Aisha Ford to drive to Six Mile Road under threat of death, the Detroit News reported.
Click here to read the full report from the Detroit News.
Tillie, who was armed with a handgun, shot Parker in the side of the head and in the arm after Ford stopped for gas, but before he could fire a third shot, Goggins jumped over the seat between her mother and Tillie, begging him to stop, the Detroit News reported. Without hesitation, Tillie reportedly pumped six shots into the child.
The first grader is in stable condition at Children’s Hospital in Detroit with gunshot wounds to the eye, left temple, chin, cheek, chest and right arm, the Detroit News reported. Parker was admitted to the hospital, but later released.
Alexis Goggins, 7, was hit protecting her mother Selietha Parker, 30, after Parker's ex-boyfriend Calvin Tillie, 29, forced the pair and family friend Aisha Ford to drive to Six Mile Road under threat of death, the Detroit News reported.
Click here to read the full report from the Detroit News.
Tillie, who was armed with a handgun, shot Parker in the side of the head and in the arm after Ford stopped for gas, but before he could fire a third shot, Goggins jumped over the seat between her mother and Tillie, begging him to stop, the Detroit News reported. Without hesitation, Tillie reportedly pumped six shots into the child.
The first grader is in stable condition at Children’s Hospital in Detroit with gunshot wounds to the eye, left temple, chin, cheek, chest and right arm, the Detroit News reported. Parker was admitted to the hospital, but later released.
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