In 2023, a few days after Thanksgiving, Gabrielle Quisenberry found herself in the wrong place at the wrong time. That wrong place was at the intersection of Indian Trail and Janine Drive, in Louisville, Kentucky. Quisenberry was on her way home from a friend’s house after taking her some leftover Thanksgiving food.
“I was driving home like normal,” she said. “I’m familiar with this area, I have family and grew up in this area, and there was nothing out of the ordinary. I was listening to music, driving home and then things felt weird. My vision was going dark, my hearing was going in and out. I had no idea what happened. I just remember the vehicle I was driving coming to a complete stop. I clearly was in shock at the time. The entire time, I kept saying, ‘Lord, something is not right, I need you to get me somewhere safe.’”
“I saw a car coming my way, but I couldn’t wait. I turned in somewhere and continued to pray. There was a Stop N Go gas station on the way. I kept praying, and the Lord pushed me to get there. I was able to get out of the vehicle, but couldn’t figure out what happened. There was glass in the car, and I could tell the windows were gone. Inside the gas station, the owner and another guy came out. That’s when I told them I needed help, I needed to call my husband. I think my phone is in the car, please help me. The owner could see the shape I was in, and told the other guy not to touch me anymore, but to stay there.”
Eventually, a crowd gathered at the gas station, something that caused Quisenberry some distress because she knew she needed help. One pedestrian called 911, and an ambulance arrived. “The police showed up too, and asked me if I knew what had happened,” Quisenberry said. “I told them I didn't know, I was just trying to get home. The entire time the EMT kept talking to me, and I just kept praying because I didn’t know what was going on. That’s when they told me I had a gunshot wound, and I felt panic come over me. I immediately prayed, begging the Lord not to let me die like this. I told the EMT to call my husband, to have him meet me at the hospital, which he did; he even got a hold of my parents before they got me to UofL Health.”
Once at UofL Health, Quisenberry began trying to piece together what had happened to her. She thought that maybe she had been in a car accident, but it was after her evaluation that the team at UofL Health told her that she had a bullet in the left side of her skull. “They told me it had to be removed, and that’s when the panic set in,” she said. “I was screaming for the doctor that I had my husband and three kids, that I cannot die. I cannot leave here. I have people that I’m living for, I can’t die.”
She later found out there were at least seven shots in the car and two made it into the headrest.
“Only one did the most damage,” she said. “I now have a titanium mesh plate in my head, from where the bullet did damage.”
Quisenberry who works as a dispatcher for Louisville Gas and Electric, as well as Kentucky Utilities, was off work for about six months. “I was excited to have something to do. It has its moments, but I was worried partly about whether or not I’d remember what to do.”
She said her husband and her children have kept her going. “They were the driving force, and helped me work to stay healthy and get better.”
When she isn’t working or raising her family, Quisenberry works with her church. “I was actually just ordained as an elder at Peace Presbyterian church in March, 2025,” she said. “I’m very active. This has allowed me to take on more responsibility in how the church works, as well as with serving others. I’m also the director of my church, so I keep myself pretty busy with upcoming activities. I also dance at church, because we have a liturgical dance ministry, so myself, my daughter, and a few other young ladies are a part of that as well.”
Even during the midst of a life-altering event, Quisenberry does her best to stay grounded. “I keep remembering a quote my mom told me one time, ‘What we do for Christ is what lasts.’ If that didn’t ring in my mind throughout my recovery. I remember before everything we were working on a play. Just because I had my accident doesn’t mean the play stops, so I had to find ways to continue to push forward. The devil is going to do what he does, but I was able to push forward, in large part because I had a community of believers praying over me. It helped a ton during my recovery.”
During her recovery, Quisenberry found herself feeling introspective. “I couldn’t believe this really happened to me. I don’t like to question God, but that kept me up at night. You hear of other people’s stories, innocent bystanders, including those who lost their lives. Then there was me, wondering why this happened, and wondering if I’d ever be able to fully recover mentally from this. This past Thanksgiving, the anniversary of the shooting was on the exact day. I was adamant this year that I didn’t want to do anything on Thanksgiving. I just didn’t have the desire, because as much as it’s a blessing that I survived, I couldn’t help but feel emotional, thinking that that night could’ve been it. I even catch myself looking at the clock on Tuesday’s right after nine, because this happened on a Tuesday. It’s hard to shake.”
Mental recovery also took time for Quisenberry. “I was nervous about being back in the car. My husband couldn’t stay home with me forever, and I knew I’d have to get my kids back and forth from the bus stop. The first time I had to take them, I had a full panic attack, in tears at the bus stop. My kids keep telling me, ‘Mom we’re so sorry.’ I didn’t want them to see me like that, because obviously things were still fresh. But I have to take care of everyone else. That set me back quite a bit, because I didn’t realize how paranoid I had become after the fact, looking over my shoulder, worried someone was watching me.”
Eventually, Quisenberry began working through her trauma. “Especially when I was home all the time, I was thinking about everything. It was around Christmas time then so I had family around, but then they had to go back to school. I was aware that nobody was there, except for my dog, who stayed right beside me. That was a lot for me to try and handle. There were moments when I’d be in my room, put away and watching my cameras at every little sound. I’m not a big social media poster, but I’d post something now and again. After that, I didn’t want to be on the internet at all, just in case someone was following me or watching me. But I’d pray. The first time I went to a support group meeting, I think at First Hour Grief, I met with others who had lost their son to gun violence, including one man who had been shot himself, and lost a sister. Hearing these stories…for a minute, I didn’t want any kind of help. I wanted to get through this on my own. But Amy Mattingly (trauma art program therapist) pushed me to consider this. Once I started reading more about it, and was encouraged not to be stubborn.”
Quisenberry described some of her hesitation for not wanting to seek help. “I didn’t want to be labeled as someone who had experienced that. As a Black woman, I could envision people saying, ‘Oh, she got shot, she ended up at UofL Hospital, this is some kind of typical situation,’ even though the reality is people of all colors all over the world deal with this. It took me humbling myself and recognizing that I needed help. I still pray a lot and still go to therapy. It’s easy to rush and try to get back out in the world, pretending things aren’t that big of a deal. But trauma cuts deep. I talked to my pastor quite a bit at the time about everything, and she wanted me to be in the healthiest space I could be in. Working with her and prayers from my church helped tremendously in my recovery.”
Quisenberry said her faith was tremendous in helping her to recover. “All the people praying for me helped me to get that extra push. Even team members and team leads would say a little something for me. My faith is what got me through, especially in the hospital when I was the only one awake, I spent a lot of time talking to the Lord, and He heard me. He helped me to get somewhere safe. I knew that He had angels help me push that car, because there’s no other way anyone who had been shot could’ve gotten that far to somewhere safe.”
Looking to the future, Quisenberry has plans to get back to normalcy. “I want to continue being active in my church. It isn’t far from where I was shot, so I’m in that area quite often actually. I have to drive through there every day. I used to have to take the long way around, but I said, ‘Lord, me and you together. I don’t want to avoid this spot forever. I still get teary-eyed driving through that intersection, because I see how far I made it to get to safety. Besides that, I’ve been looking into foundations to try and help communities who have been affected by gun violence. I want to help the youth to find other positive things that they can do with their free time, keep them from turning to the streets. I don’t know exactly what I want to do, but I’m working through it bit by bit.”
Gabrielle is grateful to her support system of family, and her church family. She also notes from scripture that this is an example of something that the devil meant to be bad that God turned around for good.
