‘This is it. I'm about to die’: Reporter describes the terrifying moment she was shot during mass attack in New Orleans in 2013 - and reveals she now MENTORS one of the jailed gunmen 

  • Deborah Cotton narrowly escaped with her life after she was caught in the terrifying mass shooting in 2013 that wounded 20 people
  • She underwent 12 life-saving operations - of a total of 36 surgeries in three years - and lost numerous organs as a result of her injuries
  • The activist and writer from New Orleans also suffered from post traumatic stress disorder and still has ongoing health issues
  • Despite the impact it has had on her life, Deborah has formed a friendship with one of the shooters, Akein Scott, and visited him in jail

A journalist who narrowly escaped with her life after she was caught in a terrifying mass shooting has told how she went on to form a friendship with one of the jailed gunmen.

Deborah Cotton underwent 12 life-saving operations and lost numerous organs - including her colon, gallbladder, a kidney and two-thirds of her stomach - after she was shot during the 2013 Mother's Day parade in New Orleans.

The activist and writer suffered from post traumatic stress disorder, was operated on a total of 36 times in three years and still has ongoing health issues as a result of the potentially fatal attack, she wrote on Thrillist

Narrow escape: Deborah Cotton, pictured, has described being shot during the New Orleans Mother's Day parade in 2013

Narrow escape: Deborah Cotton, pictured, has described being shot during the New Orleans Mother's Day parade in 2013

Compassionate: Despite almost dying in the attack, which wounded 20 people, Deborah, pictured left after being shot, revealed that she has become a mentor to one of the gunmen
Compassionate: Despite almost dying in the attack, which wounded 20 people, Deborah, pictured left after being shot, revealed that she has become a mentor to one of the gunmen

Compassionate: Despite almost dying in the attack, which wounded 20 people, Deborah, pictured left after being shot, revealed that she has become a mentor to one of the gunmen

She was one of 20 people who were wounded when brothers Akein and Shawn Scott opened fire.  

Despite nearly dying after being caught in crossfire while filming the parade, she has become a mentor to Akein, who has been sentenced to life in prison. 

'I've visited him in jail. We write each other, he calls me sometimes. We have a real connection; I guess you can say I'm mentoring him now,' she wrote.

'He's had an awakening, and is taking his first fledgling steps at healing his inner self. I see transformation and redemption in his future.'

Video footage shows her lying on the ground immediately after the incident.   

She said she remembers the bullet hitting her - entering her body above her right hip and traveled upwards into her body until getting caught below her left rib cage.

'Surprisingly it didn't hurt at all. Not one bit, which shocked me. I remember thinking, "That felt like someone just chunked a small pebble at me,"' she wrote.

Around her people were screaming and running and she could hear gunfire.

'I reluctantly accepted that I must have been shot. Then I fainted,' she said. 

While she did not feel pain, she could feel a 'burning' sensation as she lay in the street falling in and out of consciousness.

'I remember thinking, "This is it. I'm about to die,"' she said.

Aftermath: The activist and writer, pictured left a year after the shooting, underwent 12 life-saving operations - of a total of 36 surgeries in three years - and lost numerous organs
Aftermath: The activist and writer, pictured left a year after the shooting, underwent 12 life-saving operations - of a total of 36 surgeries in three years - and lost numerous organs

Aftermath: The activist and writer, pictured left a year after the shooting, underwent 12 life-saving operations - of a total of 36 surgeries in three years - and lost numerous organs

Suffering: She also suffered from post traumatic stress disorder and still has ongoing health issues
Suffering: She also suffered from post traumatic stress disorder and still has ongoing health issues

Suffering: She also suffered from post traumatic stress disorder and still has ongoing health issues

Describing it as a 'crossroads moment' during which she went through a mental checklist of questions, she said: '"OK," I thought, "if this is it, then I'm ready to go."'

But a minute-and-a-half later she was surprised to find that she was still alive.

Her boyfriend knelt by her holding her face and rubbing her heart. 'I heard his voice telling me to hold on, that help was coming,' she said.

'I heard people screaming all around me. I knew there were many others like me, shot, lying in the street.'

Next she remembers waking up in an elevator with tubes in her nose and being restrained by nurses before blacking out. 

Because of the position of the nine millimeter bullet her prognosis was not optimistic - she was told that most people in the same position do not survive.

Initially she was fearful of being in a car traveling faster than 35mph and during her first visits to Sunday parades she was 'hyper-paranoid'.

She added: '[I was] terrified that someone would break out a gun, start shooting, and I would be too frail to run and protect myself.'

But determined to maintain her freedom after the incident, she turned to her religion by meditating before going to events and asks God 'to guide and protect me'.

She said this enables her to 'release the fear and worry' and enjoy herself like she used to.