Sheila Gutman, who a year later has yet to walk again, now grasps how deep the collective trauma is after a mass killing. “We have to do better,” she says.
HIGHLAND PARK, Ill. — Sheila Gutman can measure the past year in numbers: 52 days in the hospital, six in intensive care. Eight surgeries, some lasting as long as 13 hours. Twenty-two visits to a hyperbaric chamber.Also, 364 days without walking.
“Everyone who ran that day left different than they came,” Gutman reflected recently in her first interview since the attack. “They now have a burden they did not have previously … a fear that is visceral.” “The walk is a reminder of our beloved community tradition and symbolizes the reclaiming of our town,” the city’s website explains.
In the months that followed, she came close to an amputation. Today, she gets around in a wheelchair or with a scooter, her leg bent at the knee with calf and foot resting on a cushioned platform. She has no idea when she will walk or drive again. “Everything seems different, clearer to me now. It’s like my life is in HD,” Gutman explained, sitting on her back patio on a warm summer afternoon. Her voice was calm. She repeatedly mentioned how lucky she feels.
The effort is one that New York psychotherapist Suzanne Phillips, who specializes in trauma, strongly supports. “It might be simplistic,” she said, “but the reality is that people heal in communities.”Gutman met last month with Aftermath’s leaders at Country Kitchen, a Highland Park restaurant where many sheltered a year ago. She wants to aid survivors of gun violence as they deal with the long-term aftershocks, although exactly how to best do that is something she’s still figuring out.
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