Sommer Schufletowski’s first day drawing blood from patients as a phlebotomist at Salem Health was supposed to be Nov. 20, 2023.
She instead spent that day as a patient where she had been under care since Halloween, undergoing 13 surgeries including amputation of her right leg above the knee and reconnecting capillaries and veins in her left leg.
Schufletowski has post-traumatic stress and nightmares nearly a year after her ex-boyfriend crashed his pickup truck into her Salem home on Halloween morning and shot her three times. Her dog recently knocked over the prosthetic leg she got in June and she flashed back to the sound of the truck coming through the kitchen wall. Fireworks and the smell of some cigarettes are also triggers.
She noted she was shot on the last day of Domestic Violence Awareness Month and the same day the secretary of state released an audit that found Oregon lacked an “integrated, over-arching strategy to combat domestic violence in the state.”
She said her therapist has encouraged her to talk about what happened. She said she’s also hopeful her story will illustrate that getting help for domestic violence isn’t always straightforward.