A Southern California woman says she is lucky to be alive after a terrifying attempted carjacking in Mexico left her with a shattered leg, multiple gunshot wounds and a long road to recovery.
Cassandra Light, a San Diego-based life coach, said the attack happened about a month ago in Tijuana as she was driving home from what had been a relaxing beach trip to Rosarito with her beloved golden retriever, Ellie.
According to Light, someone tried to steal her car at gunpoint and fired several shots while she and her nearly 2-year-old dog were still inside.
“One bullet entered through my driver’s side window, traveled through my car, and exited through the passenger door,” Light wrote in a statement shared on a GoFundMe page.
“A second bullet went through my lower leg, shattering both my tibia and fibula before exiting the other side, hitting my ankle.”
Light said she was then thrown from the vehicle and left lying in the street as she rapidly lost blood.
“I was losing blood so fast,” she recalled.
The adrenaline initially prevented her from fully understanding how badly she had been injured. Her first concern was Ellie, who was still sitting in the back seat of the car.
Light tried to get up and run toward her dog, but she immediately collapsed.
“When I tried to run to her, I collapsed, realizing all the bones in my leg had been completely broken by the gunshot and I had no ability to walk,” she wrote.
Unable to reach Ellie herself, Light repeatedly called the dog’s name.
“Thankfully, I kept yelling her name, and she jumped out of the window and ran to me,” Light said.
As Light lay wounded in the street, two women she had never met rushed to help. One of them fashioned a tourniquet around her leg in an effort to slow the bleeding while they waited for emergency responders to arrive.
Light was first taken to an emergency room in Tijuana before later being transferred to a hospital in San Diego.
Since the attack, she has undergone several surgeries to repair the extensive damage to her leg. Doctors inserted a metal plate, a rod and multiple screws to stabilize the shattered bones.
Her recovery is expected to take months and will require extensive physical therapy as she works to regain her strength and learn to walk again.
For Light, one of the most painful parts of the ordeal has been losing the ability to continue the work she loves.
“Losing the ability to do the work I love has been one of the hardest parts of this,” she said.
As a life coach, Light has spent years helping other people overcome challenges and push through difficult periods in their lives. She said she never imagined she would one day find herself relying on others to help her through a life-changing crisis of her own.
Through it all, Ellie has remained her greatest source of comfort.
The golden retriever stayed by Light’s side during the chaotic aftermath of the shooting, rode with her in the ambulance and waited faithfully while she underwent emergency surgeries.
Ellie has also continued comforting her through some of the darkest and most painful moments of her recovery.
“The EMTs, nurses, and hospital staff continually commented on her calm, gentle presence,” Light wrote.
Medical workers were reportedly so impressed by Ellie’s behavior that they encouraged Light to have her trained and certified as a therapy dog.
“They encouraged me to have her trained and certified as a therapy dog so that, once I’m healthy again, we can give back, bringing comfort to people experiencing trauma, hospitalization, and some of life’s most difficult moments, just as so many people brought comfort to us,” Light said.
Light described the financial impact of the shooting as overwhelming. In addition to mounting medical expenses, she is facing rehabilitation costs, legal fees and the loss of income caused by her inability to work.
A fundraiser has been launched to help cover those expenses while she focuses on healing and rebuilding her life.
This is no surprise. You go to Mexico at your peril. There are completely lawless areas where people pose as cops, put up false stop signs and if you run them stop you and demand money for fines. It has happened to me. Shooting at people in their cars is not common but with drug and human smuggling rampant you can never predict. A single woman going alone is at more risk for some kind of attack. Any “life coach” ought to know that if she lived in San Diego.
What a shame, a lawless country that will never change. As beautiful as that country is, why would anyone risk their lives to go there.
Is she a California democrat????