Mother Shot Seven Times by Stranger Calls Recovery a Miracle

When a Routine Shopping Trip Turned Deadly

On a warm Wednesday afternoon in November, Kyra Stubbs walked out of the Walmart in northeast Dallas after about 30 minutes of shopping. She was giddy. She was wearing her favorite light blue jeans. She felt beautiful. She'd just received an offer on the morning of the shooting for her dream job. She even stole a couple of glances at herself in the car windows as she walked past them. The next moment, she turned and there he is, pointing a gun at her. Then, he started shooting.

Stubbs was shot seven times on that day by a man she has never met, she said. She recalled trying to smack the gun out of his hands, instinctively, but he continued shooting. She took four gunshots to her right arm alone. "I began to run, and he just kept shooting at me," Stubbs said. "I fell to the ground and he chased me. He shot me again." She prayed to God. The next moment, the shooter walked up to her, shot her one last time and walked away, she said.

Dallas Police later identified the gunman as Christion Bingham. They said he tracked his romantic partner to the Walmart shooting an innocent bystander, Stubbs, and grazing another woman. Police said shortly after, Bingham shot and killed himself in his car.

Fighting for Survival in the Parking Lot

As she laid on the ground, bystanders stood there frozen before one woman called 911, she said. And then another person stepped forward, asking her if they could call someone. "I was asking for help, and people were standing around just looking," Stubbs said. Stubbs remained calm, she said, doing all the things she needed to do to survive before the paramedics arrived — keeping her eyes open, breathing, asking people to try to stop the bleeding.

Stubbs collapsed between two cars and began to pray. "Then I said, 'God, I trust you,' and right in that moment when I said 'I trust you,' he shot that last shot in my right buttock and then he walked away," she said. Stubbs said a sense of calm came over her. She asked a bystander to apply a tourniquet to her arm before paramedics arrived.

She did recall looking at him and seeing the anger on his face. "It was almost like he had found the person that he had been looking for this entire time and he was going to kill her," she said. "Never seen him before and I was like, 'Why? Why are you doing this?' Because he was so angry," she said. "He had this look of vengeance in his face and his eyes, like, it was evil."

The Long Road to Recovery

Stubbs had injuries in her left and right arms and her stomach. She's already had several surgeries. She has severe nerve damage in her arms and can barely move them. It has been a long month of recovery for her, she said. Medical teams have found nerve damage, fractured bones, and internal injuries, and doctors estimate it could take about a year for her to recover.

Since shooting survivor Kyra Stubbs can't use her nerve-damaged arms, her 22-year-old daughter, Kylie Scott, fixes her hair. As she recovers, Stubbs said she is unable to use her hands affecting her ability to work. She'd just received an offer on the morning of the shooting for her dream job. Scott said her mother received the itinerary for a new job that she was scheduled to start in December on the day she was shot. Stubbs was unable to start working, but the company told her they would hold the position for her until she is able to return.

Family members have started a GoFundMe to help with medical and living expenses. "We're closer than normal mother-daughter," said Scott, Stubbs' daughter. "I would say she's like my mini me," said Stubbs. Scott told WFAA that doctors expect her mother to make a full recovery, "I feel like there's so many emotions that you could feel from the situation. But I'm so grateful it outweighs every other emotion," said Scott.

Finding Purpose in Survival

"I know that God kept me here for a reason. I don't know what it is just yet, but absolutely, and I do have a testimony," said Stubbs.