Instagram @tracy_otto:
In 2019, the American woman, whose former partner died, is now competing for the archery team. Suffering from many consequences, she wants to be a “beacon of hope” for people who are victims of domestic violence.
A wonderful athlete. On October 24, 2019, Tracy Otto came close to death. While she was sleeping in her Florida home with her new boyfriend, Ricky Risley, her ex-partner entered her home before shooting and stabbing her several times. She had left him a month ago when he was violent.
While spending the evening with her new boyfriend, the athlete hears “duh”. “I don’t understand what is happening. Then I heard his voice and realized that it was my ex,” he said BBC: about the evening of the attack. After breaking into Tracy Otto’s home, he punched her, shot the young woman in the left eye with a rifle, stabbed her in the lower neck and sexually assaulted her. “My spinal cord was severed,” he says.
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The attacker also attacks the companion of the young woman. he first shoots Ricky Risley twice in the face, then stabs him in the back, causing him to collapse a lung.
Left for dead
After the attack is over, her ex-partner calls the police. “Finally, he called the police himself and said: here is my name, here is where I am. He says I’m his partner but then admits we broke up. He said: “I killed my girlfriend and her new boyfriend.” When the police arrive, he is sitting in the driveway. They are taking him away.” In January 2023, he was sentenced to 40 years in prison.
Since then, the young woman has had to get used to her new body. “If I sit in the sun, as I do during archery, my body and internal temperature rise. We have to do everything so that I don’t overheat and avoid heat stroke,” he says. “If something happens to me below my injury level and triggers unwanted stimuli, my body immediately goes into fight-or-flight mode, which causes my blood pressure to rise,” he adds.
“From my deathbed to the Paralympics”
Five years after his attack and despite the fact that his arms no longer work, the archer has regained a taste for life through archery and learned from a friend about his selection for the Paris Paralympics. “When he told me the news, I was eating. I had food in my mouth. I was eating, crying, and there were cameras everywhere,” he says. Today, she wants to be a “beacon of light and hope” for people who are victims of domestic violence.
After competing in the mixed archery events this Monday, September 2, the young archer announced her pregnancy just hours after Ricky Risl proposed under the Eiffel Tower. “From my deathbed to the Paralympics, it’s been an incredible adventure,” he admits.
Source: Le Figaro
