CHICAGO (WLS) — Although she’s a winner on the basketball court, 17-year-old Markhasia Ross’s dreams of continuing with her team at Trinity High School in River Forest are now no more.
“I get better by the day, but it’s not easy because I can’t walk” said Ross.
Ross was shot during a drive-by shooting last Aug. 11 near Jackson and Maplewood. Two other teens were hurt in the shooting.
“Nothing like this ever happened, but this time it was just the wrong place, wrong time,” said Ross.
The trauma is still as fresh as her injuries. Ross chose not to show her face as she recounted the horrifying moments that almost claimed the teens’ lives.
“Soon as I made it on the sidewalk, that’s when I got shot. It happened so fast,” said Ross.
The shooting happened near her friend’s house.
“It’s almost time for them to go to college, so we were just hanging out with them and we were dropping them off,” Ross explained.
She heard the shots as soon as her ride home was pulling up.
“I just heard gunshots and I just started running,” Ross said. “Then, when I looked down I noticed that I was shot, then I fell back down, and I just was yelling.”
She was taken to the hospital where her road to recovery has been marked with pain and tears.
“It (the bullet) went through my leg and broke my tibia bone,” said Ross.
And after spending a week in the hospital Ross is finally home. Her life spared but the lingering trauma – now, difficult to shake off.
“Knowing that I can’t walk no more is hard to take in, but knowing that I can’t play, at least, for my senior year is even worse,” Ross said.
Doctors tell her she should be fully recovered and able to walk again by November.
Two 18-year-olds, a man and a woman, who were also shot were treated and are expected to survive.
No one is in custody.
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