Kiwi shooting survivor 'I'M HAPPY I M STILL HERE

Whanganui woman Jessica Irvine lost her right eye and suffered a brain injury after being shot at close range, but 20 years on, she's found love and happiness

- Cloe Willetts. P

On a quiet Sunday in Whanganui, Jessica Irvine and her husband Duane sat together and clinked celebratory glasses of grape juice, honouring 20 years since the mother-of-two almost died from a gunshot wound to the head.

As a bubbly 17-year-old hospitality worker, Jessica lost her right eye and suffered a brain injury after being struck by a rifle bullet. But the life-changing ordeal didn’t stop her from finding love and happiness.

“Duane and I knew each other before I had my accident, through mutual friends, and I didn’t think I’d date him because he was a geek and he thought I was boisterous,” laughs the doting mum of Lucy, seven, and Chloe, 22 months.

“We reconnected through friends seven years after my accident and he has been to my big appointments and surgeries. He’s also understanding when I have emotional outbursts, which he knows isn’t really me.”

Jessica’s future took a terrifying turn on 26 February 2003, when she visited her then-boyfriend and his two mates at a rural house in Bulls, between Whanganui and Palmerston North. With her hair freshly bleached and carrying fizzy drink for the boys to mix into their homebrew bourbon, the carefree teen arrived to see the trio with guns in their hands.

“I thought they were young idiots because they were out on the deck possum shooting,” she recalls. “We were just being teenagers and I was texting my best friend, who is still my friend now, and she was going to call me at 9.30 pm, but her mum wouldn’t let her. At 9.45 pm, I was shot.”