So many times we report on shooting victims who were injured by gunfire. But when the media headlines go away, their injuries do not and many times, the victims of gun violence must cope with extended recoveries, difficult physical rehab., or life changing injuries. Today we visited with a young man who is affected by all three and then some. When he was shot in January, it earned only a small mention in the news, but for months thereafter, the family has been forced to deal with a 21 year old's personal and living nightmare. We warn you, the young suffered physical injuries which has left him with grotesque scars which you may find a bit much too bear.
Alfonso Noble Reporting,
21 year old Steven Yearwood spends every single moment of his days like this, if he's not sitting down, he's lying down. He cannot move his legs as he is paralyzed from the waist down. He must depend on his family to move him around. But this young man was not born like this, he's only been like this for 7 months. On January 25th of this year he was shot in the neck. The bullet tore through his back, injured his spine and left him paralyzed. Steven says he was simply trying to settle a misunderstanding among friends.
Steven Yearwood, Shooting Victim
"Jeremy just came out of the dark and just slapped me. He came and had me bleeding and he had his face made up and thing. I tried to talk to him and tell him we didn't have top go through this. I asked him if me and him ever had anything before and that we didn't have to go through this. He just had his face mad up and I was just watching the gun. The way how he had his hand on his gun, I knew I could have done something before I got shot in my face because it is in my face he was. With the quickness I just did my hand like that and the gun went off and caught me in my neck and my face and when I dropped on the ground, he went to shoot me again but the gun jammed on him. He would have shot me more but the gun jammed on him.
Before I fell to the ground, I saw my life flashed in front of me. I just wanted to live. I just wanted to live. I hit the ground and it was like I fell on a mattress. I asked God to live. I saw my life flashed in front of me and I prayed in the quickness of that time before I touched the ground and he wanted to shoot me more but the gun jammed on him and he ran. They chanced me for nothing because I didn't do them anything."
What Steven recounts is a story played and replayed in the city streets, young men without direction and without any guidance taking their frustration and desperation and venting through violence. It's a cycle that in his condition Steven has the ability to see and counsel against, because he's living the aftermath, a sobering reality of the destruction that result from violent acts.
Steven Yearwood,
"I can't walk. I have to use shit bag. I have to use pampers. I can't even feel when I piss. Sometimes I go to hospital and they juk me up too much that they can't find any vein and so they have to go between my penis to get blood. Everyday I have pain. Everyday I have fever. The pills don't help me. Everyday I worry.
I will tell you that most of those people you are hanging with are not really your friends. I am telling you it is the ones who don't hang with me that helped me. From the night I got shot they slept on the cold ground beside me in hospital until I came out. They haven't begged me for anything. I peoples didn't even want to be around me. Those who were around me when I got shot, all of them ran.
I got some family who I talk to and they don't listen to me. I tell them the lot of friends are dealing with and you go to beat up somebody and they say they'll come back and they come back, they will shoot you and you'll end up like me. I tell them listen to me before it happens to you. My little brother and then I coach around me. All those kids behind Martin's, sometimes it hurts me because they do a lot of rass. Sometimes they thief, they have bullets, and sometimes they make guns. They are smoking up a lot of weed and they are young. They are destroying themselves.
I know what is pain without anything could help you. Pain from morning until night. Only a two hours rest you get and pain again. I am telling you it is just pain and worries. I am telling you that you just have to fight those things. You just have to fight those things because if you don't fight those things you will be in a state like me, you'll die, you'll kill yourself."
Steven however does not want to kill himself he asked us to his home to show young people how bad it can get. For him it's bed sores that are all over his body and are literally eating him alive. Some of them are so graphic we cant show you, but they have consumed inches of his flesh. As Steven's father again looked at his son's hideous wounds he broke down. And while Steven showed us his injuries he also asked for help.
Steven Yearwood,
"I just want people to help me if they could. If they could give me a dollar, if they could raise a little money to help me so I could get my visa and go away from here and try to feel better because I have already gotten shot and I pray to God. They tell me I might have a chance of walking again. People could help me with money and whatever to make me could try go away and check myself.
If I find out I can't even walk and I have to live like this, I just want this pain to go and I could live like this for the rest of my life. I have the strength to do it. I won't even worry about them because I don't even think about those boys. I don't even think about those boys. Once I don't have this pain and have all those bedsores where you can see my bone and thing, I could live like this for the rest of my life.
All I think about it is to just go fishing everyday and keep away from people. I learn about church since I got sick because God helped me a lot. God is for real. I just started to feel that check. God is for real. Churching, fishing, and just be far from people who aren't trying to change. I am trying to be far people who aren't trying to change and who are in gangs."
Steven Yearwood Sr., Father
"Help my son so he can go international so somebody could help him. They've helped us the best they could in Belize. They can't help us anymore. We thank everybody for helping us. We don't have anything else. If anybody knows about bedsores they can come and help us and tell us what we can do to help my son. Right now my hands are down man. We ask anybody, if they know or have the knowledge to come and help us in some kind of way.
Right now, the stage of what we have, the state we are, we can't do anything else for him. The hospital is trying their best. All those nurses and doctors who came to help and assist us, thanks to them, and everybody at Social. We have to ask God now for us to try get something so we can take him out to try and get improvement. This stage he is in right now, we need help. Please everybody already helped but we need more help."
The Yearwood family asks anyone who can to call them at telephone numbers 601-9797, 6220501 or contact them at their family home at 9 Rhaburn Alley.
