She Survived Read Online Free PDF

hospital had ever dealt with a trauma like this before.”
    This series of photos was taken days after the attack. Melissa had undergone one surgery, with several more scheduled. With her face swollen, her jaw wired shut, stitches, bruises and cuts, Melissa was lucky to be alive. ( Photos courtesy of Marion County Prosecutor’s Office )

    The actual trauma hospital at the time was in downtown Indianapolis. Melissa had requested not to go there.
    As the night progressed, Melissa kept asking people she encountered what time it was. She had no idea when her assault had taken place or how long it had been since she arrived at the hospital. When hospital staffers asked whom they could call for Melissa, she told them to phone her former roommate, but it seemed like hours before he showed up.
    It was now six the following morning when the surgeon came in and explained to Melissa the extent of her injuries.
    â€œYour jaw,” he said, “was shattered. You are going to need surgery as soon as possible. We’re going to have to wire your jaw closed.”
    What puzzled the doctor as he sat and explained this to Melissa was the fact that she was still able to speak as well as she had been. Yet it was clear she was not moving her jaw while she talked.
    â€œSomehow,” Melissa said in her humorous way of looking at all things in life, “through a sense of survival, I had learned ventriloquism in an instant.”

CHAPTER 11
    SERIAL HOME INVADER
    Law enforcement didn’t know it at the time, but there was a serial home invader roaming the streets in and around that apartment complex where Melissa lived. The guy was your typical scuzzy, loner type, preying on the neighborhood’s lack of concern regarding locking their windows and doors at night. He was twenty-eight years old. At times he wore broad-rimmed, thick-lensed glasses with black frames, and parted what little greasy black hair he had to the side with a comb-over. He had beady rat eyes, a sharply featured, thin face, acne, and was about the size of a middle-school boy just hitting puberty. Not quite the monster of a man many had presumed attacked Melissa, but a guy who had nonetheless created fear and terror in those he had assaulted, not to mention the community around each attack site. Moreover, the size of the man did not make a difference when it came to the substantial nature of the injuries and pain Melissa suffered from. He had brought Melissa as close to possible death as she could have been.
    As Melissa sat in the hospital, thinking about the surgeries she now faced, the disfigurement of her face that would follow in the days to come, with law enforcement hanging around, looking to get in and speak with her, Mr. Peeping Tom was already planning and plotting his next attack.

    I had no clue who did this to me. My jaw was broken, and the whole left side of my face had almost been obliterated. I finally placed two more phone calls—one to my mother and grandmother to let them know what had happened, so they could come down from [another county], and the second to my boss to let her know to take me off the schedule for a while.
    My boss broke down in tears. I kept telling her everything was going to be okay. The bad thing was I had also just started another brand-new job as a receptionist and had only worked two days at that job and had to give it up, because it was my understanding that I probably wouldn’t be able to speak for at least four to six weeks.

    When they finally moved Melissa to an actual hospital room, the surgeon visited her again.
    â€œBefore I take you to surgery,” he asked, “do you have a picture of yourself? I, unfortunately, cannot tell from the damage what your face is supposed to look like in order to put it back together.”
    This told the story of how badly Melissa had been beaten and injured. Her face was a mishmash of tissue, swollen beyond its normal size, Elephant Man–like. She was