Kylie Ossege was a high school senior when she was shot in the chest during a mass shooting at her school in 2021. She spent two months in the hospital and physical therapy learning how to walk again.
She lived with the constant fear and anxiety that this could happen again. She tried to tell herself that it was unlikely. “The fact that it happened to you once is crazy. Like it’s never going to happen to you again. Just relax. And then it happened to me again.”
Fourteen months later, as a freshman at Michigan State University, she experienced a mass shooting again.
“I’m never going to tell myself this isn’t going to happen, because it did again,” she said. “People have to wake up and realize this is bound to happen to everyone if there’s no change.”
Gun violence is the leading cause of death for children and teens in the U.S., according to 2022 data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Earlier this year, U.S. Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy declared gun violence in America a public health crisis.