Today we have a
survivor story from guest blogger Joseph
B. Jaskolka. Just after midnight on
the morning of January 1, 1999, he was 11 years old when he suffered a gunshot
wound from celebratory gunfire in Philadelphia, as he describes below. For
years after, he had therapy five days a week.
He eventually helped with the original Million Mom March. He is now 25 years old and still has the
bullet in his head (as you can see in the x-ray). Here is his survivor story....
What goes up, must come down. That’s the sad truth behind my
situation!
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| An x-ray of Joseph B. Jaskolka and the bullet still lodged in his head |
Hello, my name is Joseph B. Jaskolka, and I am a
gun-violence survivor. Back on New Year’s Eve 1998~into~New Year’s morning of
January 1st, 1999, I changed the trend of gun-violence victims that
give-up their struggle to exist. What makes my story “unique” is that I was
just 11 years old at the time of my shooting (which is often considered a
relative death sentence by my Doctor’s and Nurses’ at that time period.)
I was your typical athletic, video game playing, outdoors
type child that loved playing with my neighborhood crew (friends) and sports
with my classmates. In my school, I loved to play sports, mainly football and basketball.
Then, the buck stops there…
It was New Year’s Eve of 1998, and as a tradition set by my
late Grandfather, everyone would travel from all-over on the east coast and try
with all their power to attend that traditional family gathering. By going to
that party, I was afforded the opportunity to talk with distant cousins who
didn’t live close-by.
As the clock struck midnight, and as normal people do in our
“civilized” nation, my parents rang in the New Year by banging on pots and
pans. I had no idea that people would be
firing their guns into the midnight sky, but that is the often painful
re-occurrence that people partake in doing. It’s an over 300 year-old tradition
dating back to colonial days when William Penn helped to establish the city of
Philadelphia, or the city of brotherly love, and sisterly affection?!
A couple cousins and I were heading to go see one of the
local Mummer’s string bands warm-up, or as they're most famously called by my
two parents, The New Year shooters. I
thought that title was pretty odd at the time, now I have more common-sense!
Being the son of a Vietnam veteran (father) and a Navy brat
(mother) I never really was ever taught to “admire” firecrackers/works. My dad always taught me that they were
dangerous, and also saying, “If you want fireworks, go in the service.” Which
before my shooting I was preparing myself for.
Against popular belief, I wasn’t walking to see the
fireworks at Penn’s Landing in Center-city Philadelphia, I was enjoying the
family-festivities in my Grandmother’s split-level row-house in South
Philadelphia. Here come the irony…
I got maybe a half-block away from my Grandmother’s home
before a “Celebratory bullet" pierced my skull. Better yet, when my cousin
Jeff ran back in the house to report to an adult to call 911, “Joe’s just lying
on the ground, everyone must have thought I was joking”, but a child with a
bullet-hole in the top of his cranium, when my parents (and aunts, uncles, and
fellow cousins) were all trying to figure out what happened to me, crazy
scenarios started to be heard.
When police searched the rooftops in a few block radius a
day later, they found over 700 spent bullets!
When everyone at the party figured out my condition, they
along with the medical staff at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP) must
have all figured I was dead. You know
you’re a dead man when the hospital has a priest sitting with your parents in
the Emergency Room to wait for bad news.
Because the city was basically broke at that time, they only
had enough funds to pay for ambulances for crowd control in Center-city, so
with my family's frantic 911 call, all the city could afford was to send me a fire
truck to a shooting scene in South Philadelphia. Even better yet, the dispatcher next sent us
a police wagon!
So, they loaded me in the wagon and off we went to Jefferson
Hospital, my first hospital, then after that I was flown
to CHOP where doctors and nurses there saved my life.
Fast-forward to the present state of our country... I can’t understand where the argument exists
between whether gun-violence is an urban problem or a residential one. The way I will always see it, it’s a bleak
and scary American issue. Both of our presidential “Hopefuls” are remaining
silent on the issue because they both think gun-control is a losing issue among
voters, but funny thing is they’re both not losing a thing by remaining silent,
just the American people keep losing their lives.
34 PEOPLE PER DAY ARE LOST TO GUN-VIOLENCE, 8 OF THOSE 34
ARE CHILDREN!!!
ADDENDUM (from
Baldr): If you wish to combat
celebratory gunfire, I urge you to visit and support the Bullet Free Sky website and Facebook page, which was
formed by the family of 12-year old Diego
Duran after he was also shot by celebratory gunfire. You can also visit and support the "Citizens Against
Celebratory Gunfire and Senseless Gun Violence" Facebook page. Bullets don't know when to stop.
