Bulletproof: a story of resilience

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Music, laughter and carefree happiness filled every room… who would have ever thought that those floors, littered with glitter, streamers and sweet wrappers, would soon be drenched in blood?

One week a festivity, the next a despicable crime scene – one that would change so many lives, forever.

Gill’s inspiring, riveting and often humorous story encompasses a tenacious 9mm bullet, 46 days in the Jo’burg Gen, eight surgeries, a few touch-and-go moments, one extraordinary army general and literally thousands of soldiers who fought and prayed for her life.

But it’s mostly a story of resilience and a courageous spirit to survive.

Gill was known as “the girl who was shot”; “the miracle” and even “superwoman”. Her road to recovery wasn’t easy, neither did it happen overnight.

She had to re-think the simplest things that people take so much for granted. It was often lonely, more than often terribly painful, but mostly hugely frustrating.

At the East Rand Business Women’s function, recently held at the Birchwood Hotel and Conference Centre, Gill spoke with a contagious energy of the “apps” she downloaded, which helped her become so resilient – not the typical apps one thinks of; those that need some or other electronic device to download, but rather those anyone can download from within themselves to overcome any adversity.

Gill’s apps were Courage, Tenacity, Acceptance, Patience and Faith.

Her journey started when she was preparing to host a farewell party for a friend. Just after her daughters and husband left the house, she was home with her friend and domestic worker.

This was when robbers stormed her house and she was shot in her lower back, paralysing her from the waist down.

The bullet ricochet off the tiles and passed through her again. Her survival was a miracle.

Gill gave insight into her soon-to-be-released book Bulletproof, reading: “Dictionaries equate tenacity with persistence and adherence ~ it’s about refusing to stop despite failures, delays and difficulties. Tenacity is a quality that you don’t know you have until you have to have it.

“I downloaded the drive and the stamina to overcome what at first appeared to be insurmountable obstacles after I was shot in an armed robbery in my home.

“I remember very clearly one day after I had been moved into high care and the ‘care’ had put me in a chair to sit up-right for a short while,” she said.

“I became sore and uncomfortable and wanted to get back into bed. I called for nurses to assist me but to no avail. I looked at the bed, a mere half a metre from me and believed I could quite easily lift myself from the chair onto the bed by myself.

“It was mere seconds after I started my journey when I realised that the bed was, in fact, a lot further away than I first thought (it was still only half a metre), but I was more uppish off the chair than down and I knew I couldn’t go back. I am not sure how long it took me to shuffle a few centimetres to eventually latch myself onto the bedside, swivel myself around and start the arduous task of leveraging myself onto it.

“I was almost there, heaving myself up, using the bed railing, my face was grey and clammy and bathed in sweat.

“Suddenly a caregiver was shouting at me: ‘What do you think you are doing?!’

“I was so angry, I was so close! I told her I didn’t need her help, that I could do it by myself. She stood back and laughed, saying I thought I was very clever.

“The nurse had caught me holding myself up on my arms like an Olympian gymnast, but there was no turning back. I remained in position while she screeched for a doctor.

“My arms were shaking with strain, but I clung onto those bars like my life depended on it.

“There was a tap at the window and I turned my head to see a doctor, giving me a perfect 10!

“I let my aching body fall onto the welcoming mattress, tears streaming down my cheek, not from the agony of moving just 50cm, but from the ecstatic knowledge that I had conquered my own Mount Everest.”