LYNCHBURG, Va. – ”I was laying there on the hard tile floor, not fully understanding what was happening, but thinking it was very possible to die,” 74-year-old security guard Rosalind Elbert said.
All her life, Rosalind Ebelt has idolized Wonder Woman — and now, many people in the Lynchburg community are saying she’s a Wonder Woman of her own.
“I feel foolish sitting here and saying I’m a remarkable woman,” Rosalind said.
On Sunday, April 21 around 3 in the morning, Rosalind was working security at the Ward’s Road Waffle House as a part of a larger security company, when she was shot directly in the face.
“The shift that I was working was not mine. I was doing it as a favor. I wasn’t even supposed to be there,” Rosalind said.
But even after she had been shot, her focus was on others.
“My concern when the whole fiasco was happening was ‘How can I keep these people safe?’” she said.
The bullet destroyed a lot of her mouth — leaving her without many teeth, her taste buds, and a hole in the roof of her mouth.
“Every step along the way I could have heard bad news. I could have heard, ‘Sorry, we can’t fix your mouth’ or ‘Sorry, you’ll never have teeth again. You’re a nice lady but you’re 74, so we’re not gonna spend a lot of time on you,’ but I have not heard that,” she said.
Before the shooting, she had written an advanced directive, saying if anything happened to her, don’t take extraordinary life-saving measures — but somehow, it wasn’t on file. If it had been on file, she said she wouldn’t be alive.
“Had that advanced directive been registered properly on file, I would not have been trached, I would not have been vented,” she said.
During six brutal days in the ICU, Rosalind made a decision.
“I have the determination, I have the desire to live,” she said.
She’s not at 100%, and she doesn’t know if she ever will be again, but that doesn’t stop her.
“Rosalind Ebelt at 40, 50 or even 60% is an amazing person. I will thrive. I intend to come back. I intend to. I’m gonna have the strength and I have the support,” she said.
The support — more than she could have ever imagined.
“I could feel, I could hear, I could sense, I could smell, I could touch the prayers,” she said.
Rather than being angry, Rosalind tells 10 News, she hopes people learn.
“Can’t there be a lesson to people to try and deal with conflict? There’s always, always, always a better way than firing a weapon,” she said.
A 30-year-old man was also shot, but is expected to be okay.
The main suspect in that incident, Omarian Fitch, is due in court Monday.
His alleged accomplice Shantia Turpin is also facing charges. Her court date is in July.
There’s a GoFundMe to help with Rosalind’s recovery expenses.
She still has a long way to go in recovery, including seeing an oral surgeon to look at doing bone and skin grafts to repair the hole in the roof of her mouth.
You can find that GoFundMe here.