Martha Childress heads off the elevator on the first floor of Russell House and wheels herself toward Pandini’s. There’s a handicap door to get onto the patio outside, but it doesn’t open when the silver button is pushed. Someone holds the door open for her instead, and she wheels herself out.
“It’s gonna get bricky,” she tells her mom, Pam Childress Johnson, as she readies herself to get up the ramp and onto Greene Street. She gets to the top of the hill, and she’s breathing a bit heavier when she pauses and looks at her mom.
“Yup, that’s a pain.”
It’s been six months since a stray bullet struck Martha’s spine, leaving her paralyzed from the waist down and taking her out of her first semester of college.
It’s been six months, but Martha will tell you it has felt like a lifetime.
She’s been coming to Columbia at least once a week for doctor’s visits, university appointments and chapter meetings for her sorority. But in four months, she’ll return to campus for far longer than a few hours.
‘BACK WHERE SHE NEEDS TO BE’
She got into every college she applied to senior year, and some were much closer to home. But Martha made it clear that she had no intention to transfer and would return to USC as soon as she could.
And next semester, that’s exactly what she’ll do.
“We’re getting her back to where she needs to be,” Pam says. “We had options, but this is where her support system is.”
And that support system is extensive.
When Martha left campus in October, she didn’t just leave behind a few friends she made in her first two months of college. She left behind hundreds of classmates, hallmates, sorority sisters and teachers; the community rallied around her, even though she wasn’t in Columbia to see it.
‘ONE OF THE HARDEST THINGS’
She still doesn’t remember much from that night.
All of a sudden she was on the pavement, and at first she assumed she tripped over her feet and fell over. After all, she says, she’s always been clumsy.
But then she realized she couldn’t get back up.
The following week is still a blur. She was rushed to Palmetto Health Richland hospital that night. When she got out of surgery, she told her parents she couldn’t feel her legs.
“I think probably the most challenging as a parent is just seeing your child hurt and feeling like there’s not anything you can do to stop it,” Pam says.
Martha then went to the Shepherd Center, a rehabilitation facility in Atlanta that focuses on spinal cord and brain injuries.
She had been on her own at school for two months. Now, she had to adhere to a rigid, physically demanding schedule to learn how to do things that had once been second nature.
“It was one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to go through,” she says. “You’re just running back and forth all day and you barely get a break. Finally, when it’s nighttime, all you want to do is just eat, shower and pass out in your bed.”
Her days were full of physical therapy sessions, where she pushed her body to its limits to get stronger. She learned how to get accustomed to the “little quirks” in her daily routine, now with her wheelchair, in occupational therapy. And in recreational therapy, she put the physical work and those quirks together.
“I like to paint and draw, so we would take things like practicing balancing, and I’d have to balance while I was painting,” she says. “It’s just combining things that you like to do. They all really go together seamlessly.”
‘I MISSED BEING HERE’
She was making progress physically, but Martha still felt stuck.
She went from being completely independent for the first time in her life to being watched around the clock by her parents, doctors and therapists — not to mention anyone who Googled her name.
“I just missed being a part of the college. I missed being here and feeling like a college student,” she says. “I just missed finally feeling like an adult and being independent. Having to cook your own food and get your own groceries and do your own laundry, things that seem like such a hassle are the things that I really missed.”
She missed her independence, but at the same time, she felt alone.
She says she felt alienated, since she wasn’t in the same environment as the friends she had just made. She wasn’t on campus with her classmates, she wasn’t at her sorority house with her sisters and she wasn’t in West Quad with her roommate.
She even saw a few of her friends take a back seat and indicate that they didn’t want to play a part in her life.
“That’s obviously hard to feel like you’re losing friends,” she says. “But it lets you know who really cares about you. The people who really care about me and want to help me are the people who keep me going.”
She knew she had those people around her. But she missed going out to dinner with her friends. She missed sorority functions and football games. She even missed going to class, since she had to drop almost all of them.
STAYING CONNECTED
She took a few online classes while she was in rehab, so she didn’t fall too far behind. But it wasn’t the same as being on campus.
“I really like being in a room with other students and having those interactions and having face-to-face interactions with your teachers,” she says. “I think it’s easier for me to understand what’s going on and to learn compared to just staring at a computer screen.”
There was one class she stayed in: University 101.
Nathan Strong, Martha’s U101 professor, made sure Martha stayed in the loop with his curriculum by Skyping her into class twice a week. The class originally met in South Quad, but relocated to the Osborne Administration Building, where the technology made keeping Martha in class easier.
For Martha, the communication with the class meant the world.
For Nathan, it seemed like a no-brainer.
“I don’t think I did anything extraordinary here,” Nathan says. “I assumed pretty much anyone would do it, so I said, ‘Sure, what do I do?’”
They kept in touch over email while she was in rehab, and Martha turned in her final on time with the rest of the class.
“What I’ve noticed out of this whole experience with her, for somebody her age, she’s done a tremendous amount of reflection and introspection,” Nathan says. “She understands who she is, where she wants to go and who she wants to be.”
Martha wants to be a peer leader as soon as she’s eligible, which works out well, because Nathan says he’s looking for a peer leader for next year.
SUGGESTING SOLUTIONS
There are improvements to be made in Five Points, Martha says — more lighting is a simple thing, but could make a world of difference in a situation like she was in last October.
But what she really wants to see is the police make a bigger shift away from underage drinking and toward gang violence.
“I want to see Five Points become a safer place in general,” she says. “The big thing is that there needs to be a shift in what’s the main priority.”
On her first visit back to campus, Martha met with university President Harris Pastides. They talked about her progress, what he could do to make the campus more accessible for her and her thoughts on safety in Five Points.
“It was nice feeling very involved in helping to make those changes,” she says.
MAKING SOME ADJUSTMENTS
After last October, nearly every aspect of Martha’s life saw changes.
Her chair is custom-made; she designed it herself, so it’s just her size. There are no handles on the back, a testament to her independence. There were several colors to choose from, but she settled on white.
“I didn’t want it to clash with me,” she says.
She can’t drive her old Chevy Trailblazer anymore. Now, she drives a bright red Mini Cooper with white racing stripes. A University of South Carolina decal sits above a Zeta Tau Alpha sticker on her back window.
“It’s my dream car,” she says as she admires the bright red car parked in a handicap spot behind the McKissick Visitor Center.
Her family had to redo their house. Martha now has an elevator to her bedroom on the second floor. She was not about to give up her mattress, she says, since she loves her mattress, but she had to get a lower bed frame that she could get into and out of. Her closet and bathroom are huge now, but she has no complaints there.
“I went into my brother’s room to get something the other day,” she says, laughing, “And I looked in his closet, and I was like, ‘Your closet sucks.’”
Martha is living off-campus next year, so that house needed renovations as well. Counters were lowered, and parking accommodations have been made. She’s living with her roommate from this year and a few other friends.
She’s excited, to say the least, about being in her own space again.
‘THINGS ARE JUST GOING TO HAPPEN’
When she gets to Columbia in August, Martha will go through a lot of the same back-to-school motions as the rest of us.
She’ll unpack her things and set up her room. She’ll rush girls in sorority recruitment. She’ll figure out where her classes are and find the quickest path to get there. She’s already mentally preparing herself for the construction on campus and the bricks on the Horseshoe.
“The bricks are not going to be fun, and this campus is so hilly. I’m going to have to start working out,” she says, as she looks down at her arms. “I’ll have to start lifting weights or something.”
When Martha gets back to Columbia, she won’t be the same girl who moved into West Quad last August. It might sound crazy, but she says some good has come from her situation and it’s changed her for the better.
“Before, I was extremely stubborn. I mean, I’m still stubborn. I think most girls are,” she says with a smile. “But I’m more willing to hear other sides to conversations, and I’m more appreciative of the things that I have, because things can be taken away from you so suddenly when you least expect it.”
Pam says she’s obviously nervous for her daughter to leave home once again, but Martha has proven to her that she’s ready.
“She needs to get on with her life,” Pam says. “We have to look forward, and we can’t look back.”
Martha’s a little nervous, too. She’s a self-diagnosed control freak, and not knowing what’s going on is an automatic stressor. She has an idea of what this fall will bring, but she knows she won’t know how the chips are going to fall until she immerses herself in the environment once again. She feels like she’s starting over.
“It scares me that I have no control over what’s going to happen when I come back,” she says. “Things are just going to happen, and I’m just going to have to deal with it.”
DETERMINED TO BE MARTHA
To a lot of people — especially in Columbia — Martha is still the girl who got shot in Five Points.
“I don’t want to be known for that, because that’s not something I want to have to carry around for four years at this school,” she says. “I hope I get to the point where people stop saying, ‘Oh, you’re the girl from Five Points’ and instead say, ‘Oh, you’re Martha!’”
And if you ask her, she’ll tell you that’s exactly who she is.
She’s just Martha: a Greenville girl who loves “Grey’s Anatomy.” She has two dogs, Robbie and Brodie, and a little brother who actually missed her when she went to college. She may or may not have a bit of an online shopping addiction.
And she’s determined.
She’s determined to come back to USC in the fall. She’s determined to make the community safer. She’s determined to speak up and introduce herself as Martha to people who only know her by her situation.
“I have an opinion, I have a voice, and I’m going to be heard,” she says. “Someone has to do it. I guess it’s going to be me.”