Controlling a wand with her mouth, Alisha Waters tapped out a Facebook post Feb. 6: "One. More. Week!" Like everyone else, she was fired up to watch the Cincinnati Bengals in Super Bowl 56.
She never indicated that she was having serious respiratory and heart problems. Never hinted that something was terribly wrong. Because that's how Alisha Waters lived.
"She was the strongest person I ever met in my life," said retired Fort Thomas police Lt. Rich Whitford. "She was an absolute angel. She wouldn't let herself be a victim."
Sale extended:Get one of the best deals ever for a subscription
Waters, 39, of Florence, died Feb. 17 at the University of Kentucky Medical Center. She'd spent more than eight years fighting for her life after her estranged husband shot her five times, leaving her a quadriplegic person. During those years, her fight also included others, and it inspired others.
Alisha Waters: Her inspirational journey after horrific shooting
"I'm still the winner," Waters told The Enquirer one week after her estranged husband shot her. A bullet that tore through her neck lodged in her torso, three bullets struck her in the abdomen and the fifth lodged in her upper thigh, her brother, Kurt Russell said then. Mathis had ambushed her the morning of Aug. 6, 2013, police said, chasing her across a parking lot and into the office building in Fort Thomas where she worked.
'So many victims need help':Alisha Waters Survivor Ride to help others
From the archives: 1 year later, Alisha Waters is not a victim
It was that "winner" attitude that carried Waters through more than eight years of living dependent on others for her care and unrelenting pain, say her family and friends – including the officer who first heard Waters' whisper as she lay in her blood.
Whitford remembers vividly the call to 20 N. Grand Ave. in Fort Thomas.
"We had an active shooter," he said. Workers were hanging out of third-floor windows when eight officers arrived. One noticed that a co-worker's car was parked in the lot. "She was not upstairs," Whitford said.
That's when he and other police officers headed into the building.
"You could smell the gunfire," he recalled. He stepped over the body of a dead man, later identified as D.J. Mathis, with a gun near him.
"Then I saw Alisha," Whitford said. Police evacuated the building, and as Whitmer and another officer stayed at the shooting scene, Whitford said, he heard a sound he says he will never forget.
"The sound of the door, just trying to shut. She was laying where she had been struck and fell, her head fell into the elevator. She was not moving."
"I crouched down near her," Whitmer said. "She asked me, 'Is he dead?'"
"Oh my God!" Whitmer said. "I just never would've guessed she was alive."
Four months later, Alisha was able to return to her parents' Florence, Kentucky, home. Her home-care nurse called her "an inspiration" with all her hard work and determination. After grueling therapy, Waters learned to use her arms by manipulating muscles in her neck and shoulders. She could operate a powered wheelchair.
Becoming an advocate for stronger domestic violence laws in Kentucky
As Waters worked to heal, she stood up for others who suffered from domestic violence – and tried to create change in Kentucky.
Because Waters had feared Mathis for months before he shot her.
Mathis had texted her 186 times in two weeks before she sought an emergency protection order, the first step toward a domestic violence order in Kentucky. She received the emergency order on April 16, 2013, but was denied the domestic violence order six days later after a hearing. The April 22 order from Kenton County Family Court Judge Lisa Bushelman reads, "no allegation of domestic violence."
Waters, with help from a lawyer and her uncle, Edde Scudder, advocated for stronger domestic violence laws in Kentucky. Then-state Rep. Thomas Kerr, R-Taylor Mill, introduced a bill in 2014 that would make stalking part of the state's domestic violence law. The bill was not made law, but Kerr said this week that Waters' spirit made him want to help her and others who suffered from such violence.
"I remember visiting her. Obviously, it was a very tragic situation that would break anyone's heart," Kerr recalled Tuesday. But, he said, "Her story was inspirational. She just had a really positive attitude."
Maureen Boyle of Newport, Kentucky, met Waters as she worked on a dissertation, Protecting Working Victims of Domestic Violence, while studying for her doctorate of management in organizational leadership at the University of Phoenix. She says her dissertation was in honor of Waters.
"I had been to her house many times as I was trying to assist her in getting the laws in Kentucky changed to include electronic medium as a form of domestic violence," Boyle said. "Alisha was extremely forgiving. She forgave her ex as soon as she was shot."
"She was so brave," Boyle recalled. "She said … now her opinion mattered. She was a fighter and very humble."
Her story, and her way of handling life, also touched people who were not involved in domestic violence concerns. She was active on Facebook, posting photos, thoughts, funny memes and communicating with people she knew as well as those she did not.
Stacy Taylor was among her friends. Also from Northern Kentucky, Taylor said she knew Alisha since they were teenagers growing up in Ludlow, Kentucky. "I continued to follow her journey for years," Taylor said, adding that her friend had "incredible strength and perseverance."
Waters' older brother by 11 months, TJ Waters, said that this week one evening, he counted the descriptive words he found people using repeatedly about his sister on her Facebook page. "I just read every single post and the words that came up the most were 'fighter, inspirational and beautiful,' " he said. "I could not say it any better. She was the most forgiving person... She would do for others with no expectation for anything in return."
Whitford said he's used Alisha's bar to try to lift him when he's down.
"I love her," he said, his voice cracking. "When I would have bad days, I'd say, 'What would Alisha do?' "
Alisha was preceded in death by both her mother, Tammy Russell, and her father, Terry Waters, in recent years. She is survived by her stepfather, Jim Russell of Florence; brothers Kurt Russell of Park Hills, TJ Waters of Norfolk, Virginia, Josh Waters of Crittenden, Justin Russell of Hebron; and sisters, Jessica Waters of Tollesboro, Kentucky and Melanie Russell of Crescent Springs.
Visitation will be 10 a.m. until the service at 1 p.m. Wednesday at Ronald B. Jones Funeral Home in Ludlow. In lieu of flowers, her family suggests memorials to Greater Cincinnati Behavioral Health Service, P.O. Box 6296, Cincinnati OH 45206.
Source link
