Woman survives domestic violence shooting. Now she struggles to rebuild her life.
CHESTERVILLE, Ohio (WCMH) -- Dawn Adkins nearly lost her life on April 1 after she was shot in the face in her home, allegedly by her husband.
She has been recovering and rehabilitating ever since.
Her husband is locked up in Ashland County on a string of felony warrants he collected leading police on a wild chase across five counties.
October is Domestic Violence Awareness Month. Adkins' brother, David Greenlee, said he wishes he was more aware of what was going on between his sister and her husband before it was too late.
Watch: Woman survives domestic violence shooting. Now she struggles to rebuild her life.
"She is a Navy veteran,” he said. “She is a five-foot nothing, actually. She claims to be five feet. She's actually, I think she's 4 feet 11. But she's a tough chick.”
Greenlee, a Navy veteran himself, said he first thought something might be off when Adkins posted several "memes" and "quotations" on social media. Something he said was a little out of the ordinary.
"They were like little memes and little, you know, thoughts and things that led me to think that there was something going on in her relationship,” he said. “And I knew there were little things here and there, but I had no idea how bad things have truly gotten.”
The morning of April 1, the day after Easter, Greenlee said Adkins’ husband showed up at the house uninvited.
"Dawn's daughter had left for school. Busting through the door. Started hitting her and then shot her," he said. "The bullet went into her right cheek, traveled around, hit her spine right here. She's going to need care around the clock from now on for the rest of her life.”
Adkins crumbled onto the floor in her home motionless, but she survived.
Adkins, a nurse practitioner, was now in a situation where she needed others to help take care of her. Since that day, her friend and neighbor Debbie Snell has been working hard to keep Adkins’ spirits up.
“Every day you see her, she's just stronger and stronger,” Snell said. “Her mind is so sharp. She's a tough lady. She is gearing towards being positive about the situation and she wants to be there for her daughter's graduation. And I think that's what keeps her going.”
Adkins’ daughter is a senior in high school and Adkins wants to be home for the graduation, but there's a lot of work that needs to be done before that can happen.
"She needs a handicapped room, she needs a new kitchen countertop and to her level, she is going to need her bathroom to be equipped for a handicapped and a wheelchair bound,” Snell said. “She has to be able to have a handicapped ramp. She has to have her kitchen counter to her height. Her bathroom has her biggest fear is, it's got to be adaptable for her.”
All of those things take time and, most importantly, money. Greenlee said his sister's insurance money ran out, her 401K was completely depleted, and there were still bills to pay.
Once charges are filed in the shooting against her husband, Greenlee believes Adkins will qualify for some disability money from the state.
"It's going to give her $50,000, which is great,” he said. “That's a, that's a tremendous amount of money. It also equates to about two months in the facility she's currently in."
Greenlee said he will have to live with the fact that he felt like something was off with his sister and her relationship, but wasn't there to help save her. But he does have a message that might help someone else.
"Let them know that you're there to help,” he said. “That, that you'll do what you can because you just you don't know if you're going to be that last helping hand."
Dawn (Adkins) Boucher has a GoFundMe page that was set up to help remodel her home to make it accessible so she can move back in before her daughter's graduation party in the spring.
There are dozens of domestic violence resources across Ohio. Some of those include:
- Ohio Domestic Violence Network
- Center for Family Safety and Healing
- Lutheran Social Services of Central Ohio
- United Way of Central Ohio
- City Attorney's Office - City of Columbus
- CAP4Kids
For a list of domestic violence resources, click here.