Blaine Williams (33) of Louisville, KY has a positive outlook on life, despite being met with intense challenges over the last decade of his life. He was incarcerated in 2010, and was only released in May of 2023. Since getting out, he enjoys video games (Mortal Kombat and Sonic 2, among them) and being with his family. He uses an adaptive controller to be able to play after the loss of some of the use of his hands; his favorite fighter is Subzero. He also enjoys the Marvel Movies, and likes Wolverine of all the Marvel superheroes. He has ambitions to travel, but mostly just wants to spend as much time with his family as he can, especially after all that he has been through.
In the early morning hours of June 13th, 2023 around 2:00 a.m., just outside of No Haterz motorcycle club in Louisville, Blaine found himself in the wrong place at the wrong time, just weeks after he had been released. “I couldn’t really tell you where it was, it’s in the West End. It had been so long since I was out…I was only out for three weeks before I was shot, so I didn’t even get to learn the city again.”
“Most of that day I was with my girlfriend. I was coming from my mom’s house, and I called a friend to get a ride back to my girlfriend’s; I didn’t have a car or transportation at the time. We stopped at the No Haterz for some reason, I don’t really recall or reason why we were there. It was me, him, and his girlfriend. I was in the backseat, and had just gotten a new iPhone 14. I’m messing with the phone in the backseat and remember looking up, seeing a guy across the street, and a car trying to run the guy over. The guy pulled out a gun and started shooting at the car, and several others started shooting too. Somehow I ended up getting shot. Just the wrong place at the wrong time. I can’t remember hearing the shot because it seemed like it was after the barrage of shots. I felt like I was safe, so I looked up, and then felt my whole body go into a trance because I had been shot in the neck, I was completely immobilized.”
“After I got shot I fell back into the seat, and could barely talk. My friend was out of the car at the time, and the woman was ducking down, so I couldn’t even tell him I was shot until they looked back at me. He jumped in the back seat, panicking more than I was. I told him to apply pressure to my neck, and she sped me to the hospital. I remember catching every single light on the way. It was crazy, and we made it there. I don’t remember much else until I woke up in the hospital.”
Once he was at UofL, the first few days were challenging. “I remember not being able to move, and not being able to breathe, because I’d been shot in my neck. I had a trach and all this other stuff hooked up to me. At first I couldn’t move my arms at all, I was just paralyzed it seemed like. It was crazy.” In total, he had been shot twice, both in the neck. Blaine had fractured both his C6 and C5 from the gunshots. Blaine was taken into surgery, where among other treatments he had some pins installed.
“All I could think was, ‘How did this happen, that my luck is so terrible?’ I don’t know how I’m going to live like this, if I’ll be able to move, if I’ll be able to breathe without a machine, if I’ll be able to talk…”
Things started to turn once Blaine saw how much support he had. “People really stood by me, no matter what. It was some dark, dark days for me for a long while in the hospital. I was in there for a while, because I couldn’t get off the ventilator. I went from UofL to Kindred Hospital to get off the ventilator, then from Kindred to Frazier Rehabilitation Institute. I was in the hospital for three or four months. Through that time, the more that I saw how my people were there for me, it gave me an extra boost that allowed me to dig deep and see that I have something worth living for. Now I feel so different, like I have to take advantage of this, to use this to help at least one person through this. I have to keep on keeping on, just like my momma says.”
Getting the trach out in August of 2023 was a turning point for Blaine. “I was elated, I was very happy to get it out. That was a serious milestone. Because it seemed like I was just suffering, I kept hearing ‘you’re doing good, you’re making progress,’ but then something would happen like I have fluid in my lungs; then I’d have to start the procedure all the way over, and it’d kill my progress. It was a lot. So for me to finally complete a treatment plan that they had me on at Kindred, and get through all the steps they had made for me. I got through it. It felt so good to eat, and to talk…I couldn’t stop talking.”
Blaine was taken to Frazier in early August, and was discharged on September 7th. He started some form of PT while in UofL, but it was when he got to Frazier that he could really start moving his arms more. “It was maybe two or three weeks before I really started seeing that I could move my arms at least a little. I was dancing and everything [out of joy].”
The team at Frazier had Blaine start with speech, physical, and occupational therapy. “It was a total 180 from where I was just laying in the bed all day. I see why they were preparing me for actually functioning outside the hospital environment, getting me up at the same time every morning and going to meetings, and being punctual…things like that. My time at Frazier was good, it was informative and I learned a lot there. It was still a dark time, but the dark times came fewer and further in between. It was me talking more and more to people outside the hospital, and seeing that life is moving by for everyone else, but not with me…but it was eventually less of that, and more about how to move forward and keep going.”
“At the end of the work day, at 4:00, I’m back in bed. Just watching TV and thinking, hearing different things going on with the rest of my family, and my friends. It made me really depressed, and played with my mind…but here comes my loved ones, every single day, my mom and my girlfriend came by every single day. Even when I couldn’t get zapped out of the darkness, they were still there for me through all of it. That’s something I’d hear from PT too, was that things were going to get better; it may not be the ideal situation, but it’s going to get better. It helped me to get to where I am now.”
Eventually, conversations started about Blaine returning home, “...which brought out a whole new range of emotions. What would life look like, how would people react, where was I going to stay? I would absolutely need help, and people who would take care of me. But that’s another thing about Frazier, everything I was doing was getting me ready for that moment of getting out and actually living a functional life in some type of way. But I was definitely nervous. But after being cooped up for months, I couldn’t wait to get out, see the sights and smell the smells. I didn’t even get to see anything in just three weeks when I got out so…I was excited to see what life was like, as much as I was nervous for what life is like.”
Blaine was discharged on September 7th, 2023. “The initial plan was for me to go to my girlfriend’s house; we had an argument the day before, so I wasn’t sure what was going to happen until she showed up and started helping me pack all my stuff. All the nurses, especially the ones who were with me every day, all the regulars were there, and they were all happy for me to get out. It was a good day. My birthday is September 9th, so I made it out for my birthday…I was actually pretty depressed on my birthday, my first one out after so many years…I had so many plans, and my first one out I spent laying down. It was depressing, but I was glad to be out of the hospital.”
Blaine is in the process of making plans with his family to go on a safari in either Tanzania or Botswana in the coming months. The months since discharge, “...have been up and down. I have to get a little more grounded before we travel, but I want to make sure my family is okay with everything before we travel. There were a lot of small things we had to get used to, that were different from what we thought they would be. It was a lot to overcome, but it made us stronger together.”
Blaine still does PT both at Frazier and at home, and at the time of the interview he was working on transfers in and out of a car. He also works on balance, stim work, and dressing himself. “I really enjoy going to therapy, and I really like my therapists because they push me. My long term goal is to get back to being as functional as possible, which will help me the most with living on my own. I haven’t had a dark spell in a while now, and I’m working to not let it get me anymore.”
Blaine wants to shout out his nurses, from the UofL ICU Trauma Center. “There were two nurses that helped me out in a major way, they were Kirsten and Saundra . I also want to shout out my support team, my mother Kimberly Williams, and my fiancé Yuri Bell. Without them, I wouldn’t even be sitting here talking. I honestly feel like I wouldn’t be. They have been the most inspiring, uplifting people I could ask for in my life. I truly love them with all my heart. I would also want to tell anyone in my situation, don’t let the darkness get you. Really find something, no matter what it is, to help you move forward, even if it’s just an inch at a time. ”
Blaine Williams.
A Gentle Soul.
Trauma Survivor.
