Takieyah Reaves was 29 when she was shot in the stomach in a random attack outside a nightclub in Newark, New Jersey.
Takieyah, 32, was struck in her stomach and right leg during the July 2017 shooting. One of those bullets blew her stomach wide open, with doctors warning she was unlikely to survive intensive surgery aimed at repairing her damaged insides.
Doctors were ultimately able to save Takieyah’s life and stitch her stomach back together, although the size of the wound on her stomach made it impossible to close until it heals. That has meant Takieyah has been forced to live with a gaping hole on her torso and with the inside of her intestines fully exposed, with some people mistaking the protruding wound for a pregnancy.
Takieyah, a criminal justice student, said: ‘It will get patched up properly, but it has been left open and exposed ever since it happened. It bulges and I am constantly asked if I am pregnant when I go out. People ask me if it’s a boy or a girl and I then have to explain everything.’
Takieyah was nursed by her mother Tammi Reaves-Duncan as she recovered, with the mother of two spiraling into depression as she came to terms with her disfigured abdomen.
Takieyah said: ‘I wasn’t supposed to make it out of hospital alive, my family were told to say their goodbyes. I am so grateful to still be here and be given a second chance at life, but I can’t help feeling depressed by how I looked.
‘I kept my stomach hidden from everyone for a long time, even from my kids. I was so depressed by my body, I had scars all over and I hated it.
‘I just wanted to curl up in a ball and hide and I was scared to go outside because of guns on the street. I also didn’t want anyone to see my body so I found it hard to live my life as normal.
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