SEATTLE – Christina Rexroad’s path to recovery began on an operating table at a Seattle hospital when her heart started beating again.
Friday morning, the 29-year-old Everett woman took her first steps.
She used a walker to get to the restroom in her room at Harborview Medical Center in Seattle.
Rexroad was one of the six women shot July 28 at the Jewish Federation of Greater Seattle. Pamela Waechter, director of the Jewish charity’s annual fundraising campaign, was killed.
Doctors say Rexroad is lucky to be alive.
“It’s a miracle,” her mother said Friday. “People talk about miracles every day. This is one.”
Rexroad’s mother agreed to speak with reporters on the condition that her last name not be published. The woman, called Mary, has a different last name than her daughter.
The alleged gunman, Naveed Afzal Haq of the Tri-Cities area, this week was charged with aggravated first-degree murder, attempted first-degree murder, first-degree kidnapping and burglary. He’s also charged with malicious harassment under the state’s hate-crime law.
Haq, who briefly lived in Everett, allegedly said he decided to shoot the women because he is a Muslim, and was angry at Israel.
King County prosecutors are deciding whether to seek the death penalty.
Rexroad’s spirits are high, her mother said. She wants to go home, where she can be with her 10-year-old son, David. She wants to rest and watch her favorite television shows, “Smallville” and “Gilmore Girls,” without someone checking her vital signs.
A week ago, she was fighting for her life.
Rexroad follows the Christian faith. She has worked for more than a year for the Jewish federation as an accountant.
She told her mother the gunman didn’t say anything when he walked into her office. He just aimed at her and fired twice, hitting her once in the stomach.
She ran before he could shoot again.
Rexroad made it down two flights of stairs. She believes she may have fallen, because she has unexplainable bruises. She collapsed near co-workers when she got outside.
“She told the girls, ‘I’m shot, and now I’m going to pass out,’ and she did,” her mother said.
Of the five women brought to the hospital, Rexroad’s injuries were the most critical. The bullet tore through her abdomen and traveled into her left leg, rupturing a major blood vessel. She’d lost most of her blood by the time she reached the hospital, Harborview chief surgeon Dr. Ronald Maier said.
Rexroad’s heart stopped beating as she was brought into the emergency room, he said.
The survival rate of people who go into cardiac arrest from blood loss is low – less than 15 percent, Maier said.
“She’s extremely fortunate,” he said.
Rexroad was stabilized the day of the shooting, but remained on life support for days. Doctors weren’t ready to say she was out of the woods.
Each moment was gut-wrenching for her mother. She waited day and night at the hospital. Her heart froze whenever her phone rang.
She turned her thoughts inward and focused on God.
“No more crying. No more getting upset,” her mother said. “I was just watching Him do his work, watching her heal every day.”
The high point of Rexroad’s recovery was when they took her off life support.
“When she got past the point when I had to worry about her dying, that was the bright spot,” the wounded woman’s mother said.
Rexroad is a single mother who works three jobs to support her son. Her husband died nine years ago.
Doctors expect a near full recovery although Rexroad may always have swelling in her leg, Maier said.
Her family doesn’t have to worry about paying medical bills for her hospital care. Her employers have promised to take care of that. Her mother plans to take care of her when she’s released from the hospital, which could be soon, Maier said.
The federation is also remodeling its offices in hopes of easing the memories of what happened. Rexroad wants to return to work, and that will make it easier for her, her mother said.
She said she’ll never forget what happened, but harbors no hate for the man who shot her daughter.
“We’re all God’s people, no matter what, even the man who did this,” Rexroad’s mother said. “I feel bad for him and his family.”
She’s just glad her daughter is still alive.
Reporter Scott Pesznecker: 425-339-3436 or spesznecker@heraldnet.com.
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