Shot, survived, and starting over

In Langley’s case, detectives have yet to determine what motivated the seemingly random gunfire at 6 a.m. on March 30 under a bridge, and police say there are no suspects.

So like many victims who haven’t seen their shooters brought to justice, Langley left the city.

For the first few months, she lived with her 31-year-old daughter and mostly stayed indoors, sometimes for days at a time. There were hospital visits and dentist’s appointments and sleep interrupted by nightmares. The first time she caught a glimpse of herself in a mirror after she was shot, she screamed at her unrecognizable reflection.

This summer, she moved out of Philadelphia and into a one-bedroom apartment, where inside was a stack of cardboard boxes that held 30 years of memories she struggled for months to unpack.

Still, in the time since, there have been small steps toward progress. Her injury has scarred over, and while there are about a dozen tiny bullet fragments still lodged in her cheek and neck, she is no longer in constant pain. Mostly, the spot itches, a feeling she sees as her body’s way of showing her it is healing.

For a time, she attended therapy and worked through her anxiety, some of which she said stems from a tumultuous childhood of foster care, abuse, and struggles with abandonment. She returned to work, where she takes comfort in the familiar rhythms and has a handful of coworkers who donated to help with the bills after the shooting.

And these days, she’s on an appreciation tour of sorts, endlessly expressing gratitude for the network of supporters who held her up along the way, including Melany Nelson, the executive director of Northwest Victim Services, who assisted with everything from relocation to unpaid medical bills, lost wages, and therapy.

To them, Langley is courageous, affectionate, and relentlessly positive — a 4-foot-9 woman with the spirit of a heavyweight. She’s open with loved ones and strangers alike about her experience of being shot. Maybe sharing what she went through, she reasons, will help others feel better about the challenges in their own lives — and grateful it didn’t happen to them.

But in quiet moments alone, the reality of what happened is still settling in.

There’s the wistful feeling of seeing those unpacked boxes in an apartment that doesn’t feel like home, and the pang of fear each night when she moves a chair to block the door. There’s the panic and breathlessness she feels when she sees anyone who looks vaguely like the person who shot her.

And there is dread masquerading as vigilance each day when she embarks on her new daily commute, which begins before sunrise. To make it through the rides on public transit, she reads Bible verses from an app and recites inspirational quotes that a coworker sends her almost every day. She prays, and often talks on the phone to a longtime friend, Ken Barnett, who keeps her calm.

Langley called him just after the shooter approached her under the bridge and fired.

“I was shot! I was shot!” she screamed. And then the line went dead. Barnett called 911.

Within minutes, Officer Timothy Camlin arrived and Langley was lying in the street facedown. As he threw his police cruiser into park, he said, Langley lifted her face and let out a scream he’ll never forget.

“I’m dead!” she yelled over and over. He raced her to Albert Einstein Medical Center and stayed for an hour until it was clear she was going to make it.

Langley and the officer recently met for the first time since that day. At the 14th Police District in Northwest Philadelphia, she brought him breakfast from Dunkin’ and told him: “You are my hero.”

“You are an inspiration to me,” he replied. “I have thought about you so much since that day.”

“They say I’m a miracle,” she said. The doctors said the outcome could have been far worse had the bullet taken a different path.

Wearing a sweatshirt that read “grateful, thankful, blessed,” Langley told Camlin how she deals with the lingering trauma of the shooting, saying she faces each day determined to tackle its singular challenge.

“I know that I have a purpose,” she said. “I don’t know what it is yet. But it’s a purpose.”

She told the officer she felt she had to move out of Germantown, leaving behind neighbors and friends whose company she’d treasured for decades. She was afraid to stay while her shooter was still at large.

Investigators have little evidence to go on. The shooter was wearing a mask, making him difficult to identify, said Chief Inspector Frank Vanore. Detectives struggled to find surveillance footage in the area, he said, and the investigation remains open.

Sometimes Langley muses about going back, and she wonders if moving away was a mistake, like running from the situation instead of trying to fight it.

Her daughter tells her not to go, but to try to find comfort in her new normal. She is one of many in Langley’s life who tells her she is beautiful in spite of her wounds.

Langley doesn’t quite believe it yet. Some days at work, she slips into the restroom, sees her reflection, and bursts into tears.