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“I’m God, and You’re Dead”: Tracy Armstrong
Although he survived being shot, Tracy Armstrong feels that his assailant actually killed him. The three bullets that paralyzed him below the chest also moved his lifelong dream beyond reach. While Armstrong spent years building Blue Springs Lodge, his six cabins near Panguitch Lake, he hasn’t been inside any of them in more than two years. His wheelchair can’t travel the terrain that constituted his workplace for decades.

On August 3, 2007, Armstrong’s plans were shattered when 24-year-old Jasson Hines charged into the lodge office and yelled, “I’m God, and you’re dead!” In slow motion, Armstrong saw fire emerge from the gun before bullets struck him once in the neck and twice in the chest. Doctors later said that one bullet severed his spinal chord as cleanly as a scalpel, while another entered the nerve center of his right arm and the third penetrated his back, scattering a rib bone in pieces and puncturing a lung. Still conscious amid the worst pain of his life, Armstrong “prayed with all my heart that I could live to be with my wife and children.” He believes he’s alive today because that prayer was answered. He further feels that the prayers of others gave him the strength to keep living. He has no idea why his assailant—who remains in a Utah prison— attacked him. An ambulance arrived 20 minutes later. By the time Armstrong and his family had arrived at the hospital, he realized he was paralyzed. He told his daughter he couldn’t dance with her at her prom this spring.

Months later, he returned to a different sort of cabin.

In an outpouring of generosity, friends transformed his garage into handicapped-accessible living quarters that included a bathroom and a room with a view of his patio. Other benefactors offered financial contributions. “I didn’t know how much strangers cared,” Armstrong says.

Armstrong was able to achieve his goal of participating with his daughter at her prom this month. (CC)

Revenge is not mine: Ruben Martinez
On July 4, 2007, just after sunset, Ruben Martinez, then 16, walked to a 7-Eleven store three blocks from his Glendale-area home. A group of guys began antagonizing him; one alleged he knew Martinez, claiming Martinez had been disrespecting him earlier that evening, but eventually left the store. Martinez, confused because he’d never seen them before, began walking home. About a block away from 7-Eleven, a car screeched to a stop behind him, shining bright lights. Four young men jumped out of the car and began beating Martinez. When he tried to protect himself, he was shot in the side with a pistol.

The bullet had entered his side, hit his bladder and large intestines, then exited his back. Doctors later said he was minutes away from death.

Three years, four surgeries and a bill of more than $100,000 later, Martinez has resumed an active lifestyle, but not without mental unrest. In the hospital, he could only think of revenge. “I would think about it every day. I’d say, ‘I’m not going to forget that face and those tattoos,’ ” Martinez says. While close friends and family visited, they encouraged him in a positive direction, and he realized vengeance would spin a vicious circle, potentially costing him his life. Although he still hasn’t forgotten the face, he’s no longer angry. “I decided to let it go.” Martinez says soon after the incident, his detective had to investigate another case and he never heard back about who his assailants might have been. He imagines his case will never be solved, and the assailants will remain free.

Martinez, who was on probation at the time of the shooting, thinks the shooting may have been a blessing. He was often in trouble with the law and never went to school. “It’s opened my eyes a lot, how education could change my life,” he says. “I want to be the first in my family to graduate high school and go to college. I used to not be close to my family; I want to be a better example for my little brother and sister.” (AD)

“What am I going to tell my mom?”: James Reifenberger
Ten years later, James Reifenberger still wonders why. On May 15, 2000, Reifenberger’s friend, Michael Brown, struck a deal with two young men, agreeing to give them a ride across town for $5. As Brown turned his van around in a parking lot, Reifenberger, sitting in the passenger seat, saw a bright flash accompanied by a loud crack. Brown’s thigh was instantly smoking. From the back seat, one of the men aimed the gun at Brown’s face and pulled the trigger; the firearm jammed. Brown jumped out, pressing the automatic door locks. “He thought I was already out,” Reifenberger recalls. “I went to open the door—it was locked.” Feeling the hot gun barrel near his head, Reifenberger reached back to grab it. He and the shooter wrestled with the gun before it went off, hitting Reifenberger in the neck and torso, shattering the van window. Reifenberger held his throat. The car seat filled with blood. He cried, thinking, “What am I going to tell my mom?” Suddenly, his friend Brown opened the van door.

In a near-death experience, Reifenberger saw his body as if he were standing in front of the van. Later, he died twice while spending three months in a medically induced coma. He awoke weighing just 74 pounds—he’d lost a lung and multiple units of blood. He had to learn how to walk, talk and eat again. “It was eight months before I would walk any distance.” He cries more easily and is more sensitive after the experience. He believes he was spared to be here for is daughter A’Janae, born in 2005. His marriage endured. The experience hardly settled him down—he sky dived on his 35th birthday and continues to ride his Honda CBR 954 RR motorcycle “very quickly.”

He longs to find his friend, Michael Brown, who he believes saved his life and who he hasn’t seen since that fateful night. “I want to let him know that I really did make it.” He can still see his assailants in his head. “I don’t feel anger. What I’d like to know is why.” (CC)