Gun shot to the face by the Boy friend ( Not for Minor )

Gun shot

Survivor of brutal attack shows her resolve

Two years after being shot in face, Carolyn Thomas is a new woman


























































































































































By JACQUIELYNN FLOYD / The Dallas Morning News

From a distance – say, across a crowded restaurant or from down the block – Carolyn Thomas looks like everyone else.

Slightly closer, you see that she looks scarred and a little off-kilter, as if her features had been rearranged by Picasso.
Carolyn Thomas
JIM MAHONEY/DMN
Carolyn Thomas has endured 11 major surgeries to rebuild the blasted ruin that was left after her boyfriend shot her in the face in 2003.

Face to face, you'll notice that her nose, anchored in place by a fashionable pair of Christian Dior glasses, is prosthetic. You might note that she turns her head slightly, the better to see with her good left eye – the right, while a perfect match, is a prosthesis, too.

Those who know her story know it's little short of a miracle that she now has a face to present to the world.

It took two years and 11 major surgeries for doctors to rebuild the blasted ruin that was left after Carolyn's boyfriend shot her in the face during a jealous rage in 2003.

The people who know Carolyn best, though, know that the biggest change isn't really about her face at all.

"I'm stronger now, more independent," she said, lounging comfortably on the sofa in the tidy frame house where she lives alone in southwest Waco. "I feel like a different person."

In many ways, she is a different person.

Two years ago, she saw the world from behind a heavy bandage that covered her face from her forehead to her upper lip, a crude circle cut out for her one good eye. She could eat nothing but liquid taken through a port in her stomach; a tube in her trachea helped her speak and breathe.

"People look at me and think they would have wanted to die. They wouldn't have wanted to live in my condition," she told The Dallas Morning News in 2004.

Carolyn, 37, never lost the determination to live, but she had to steel herself to leave home and endure the shocked stares of strangers.

Now, in her fledgling career as a professional public speaker, she can calmly meet the gaze of 100 people in a crowded meeting room. She'll be the keynote speaker this week at a family violence conference hosted by the Dallas County district attorney's office.

Her phone rings a lot; she maintains a meticulous calendar in the kitchen to keep up with her speaking dates.

"Lemme see ... I leave on the 27th?" she said briskly to one caller. "OK, I can come on the 26th. What time do I speak?"

It's a piece of cake after two years of being filmed, interviewed, photographed and questioned by dozens of inquisitive strangers.