Woman stabbed over 100 times speaks out six years later
SEE ALSO: ‘Heartbroken’: Legal battle ends for Pathways stabbing survivor
JACKSON, Tenn. — A woman recounted her experience after she was attacked by a patient at a local healthcare facility six years ago.
“His life was taken right in front of me. I almost lost mine,” said Jessica Forsythe, who was a healthcare worker and a stabbing victim. “November 24, 2016, I was stabbed 105 times while I was 19 weeks pregnant in an officer-involved shooting at Pathways of Behavioral Health.”
Forsythe — a mother of a small child and pregnant with her second child at the time — was the only worker on the downstairs floor that day.
“I was scheduled to work by myself that day in a mental health facility while 19 weeks pregnant. I was scheduled to work by myself,” Forsythe said.
And she says what happened next was something that she will live with for the rest of her life.
“We were not able to search patients. He had the knife in his pocket. I had to witness an officer-involved shooting. This patient, man, father, son. I witnessed him being killed right in front of me,” Forsythe said.
And thanks to the quick act of the officer, Forsythe lived to see her family again. But it was not without a long road to recovery.
“After that, I was in the Med for eight days in the ICU and then I was transferred to an in-patient rehab in Jackson to learn how to walk again, to learn how to use my hands again to get more function,” Forsythe said.
But six years later, she still continues to recover and live with the horrific incident.
“I have permanent spinal cord damage, a lot of motor function I don’t have. I am blind in my right eye. I won’t ever get to see out of it again. A lot of feeling hasn’t come back,” Forsythe said.
Forsythe says the incident was just the beginning of her struggles.
She says she has had to fight for compensation for her long list of medical bills and to get disability for her inability to work.
You can read more of her story here.
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