Bernadette Peters
On a quiet Sunday in Whanganui, Jessica Irvine and her husband Duane sat together and clinked celebratory glasses of grape juice, honouring 20 years since the mother-of-two almost died from a gunshot wound to the head.
As a bubbly 17-year-old hospitality worker, Jessica lost her right eye and suffered a brain injury after being struck by a rifle bullet. But the life-changing ordeal didn’t stop her from finding love and happiness.
“Duane and I knew each other before I had my accident, through mutual friends, and I didn’t think I’d date him because he was a geek and he thought I was boisterous,” laughs the doting mum of Lucy, seven, and Chloe, 22 months.
“We reconnected through friends seven years after my accident and he has been to my big appointments and surgeries. He’s also understanding when I have emotional outbursts, which he knows isn’t really me.”
With love of her life Duane. “He just sees me for me.”
Jessica’s future took a terrifying turn on 26 February 2003, when she visited her then-boyfriend and his two mates at a rural house in Bulls, between Whanganui and Palmerston North. With her hair freshly bleached and carrying fizzy drink for the boys to mix into their homebrew bourbon, the carefree teen arrived to see the trio with guns in their hands.
“I thought they were young idiots because they were out on the deck possum shooting,” she recalls. “We were just being teenagers and I was texting my best friend, who is still my friend now, and she was going to call me at 9.30pm, but her mum wouldn’t let her. At 9.45pm, I was shot.”
The family works around Jessica’s extreme fatigue and headaches.
Jessica has been told what happened that evening but doesn’t remember. She knows a friend of her ex-partner came inside holding a .22 calibre rimfire rifle, with the gun pointed downwards and his right index finger in the trigger.
“He said someone called out his name, so he turned around and the gun lifted, and his finger set it off,” Jessica explains. “There was a bullet locked in the chamber and it got me less than three metres away.
“It went between my eyes and to the right, slashing my eye. I have a memory of someone on me saying my name and me swearing at them to go away because I had a headache.”
She would never again be this happy-go-lucky teen.
Losing an eye was just the start of Jessica’s problems.
One of the boys phoned emergency services and followed instructions to place a bag of frozen peas on Jessica’s eye, which suddenly bulged out. Between discussions about whether to drive her to the hospital, an ambulance arrived, followed by police, fire trucks, detectives and a helicopter to fly her to Palmerston North Hospital.
The young man who shot Jessica was later charged with careless use of a firearm causing injury and received 250 hours of community service, which Jessica believes wasn’t a harsh enough sentence.
On the evening of the accident, when she was rushed into emergency surgery, Jessica’s right eye and a piece of bullet were removed. Her head was so swollen, you couldn’t see her ears and neck, and the teen’s newly dyed hair was stained bright red from blood.
“I was in an induced coma for three days and woke to see my mum, who told me what happened,” she shares. “The only thing I remember was asking for my best friend and a mirror. I could see the tissue from my eye hanging out of the socket, and I turned around and said, ‘At least I don’t have to wear a Halloween mask!’ It didn’t really register at that time.”
The injury required facial reconstruction.
A few days later, while rubbing behind her ear, Jessica felt a lump, which was the tip of the bullet. She was sent to Wellington Hospital to have it removed and on the way there, she thought she was getting her eye back.
“I don’t know why I did, but when I woke up and didn’t have my eye, it was really traumatic,” she says. “I just had to wear a patch and didn’t get a fake eye until about six months later. Now I’m on to my third acrylic eye, which are made for me in Napier.”
As well as losing her right eye, Jessica suffered a permanent brain injury called frontal lobe syndrome, which causes personality and language changes, loss of motivation, lack of impulse control and emotional outbursts. She also lives with extreme fatigue and headaches that have worsened with age, and stopped her from working.
All daughters Chloe (left) and Lucy see is a doting mum.
“When it first happened, I was all over the place and not the same person,” Jessica admits. “I had to relearn everything, even putting on makeup, which was hard because you close your eyes to put on your eyeshadow. Being 17 and a girl, it caused depression.
“I’ve had facial reconstruction, including two eye lifts, a screw in my right eye socket and nose surgery because I developed sleep apnoea from the injuries.”
Seven years ago, she was diagnosed with epilepsy after experiencing her first seizure while six months pregnant in the bath. Luckily, Duane, 44, was at home and heard splashing in the bathroom, where he found Jessica lying stiff with her teeth clenched and lips blue. An alarm has since been installed at their family home, which the couple’s eldest daughter can push to call for help if needed.
For Jessica, who married her plumber and gas fitter hubby in October 2020, the health battles didn’t stop there. The rock ‘n’ roll dancing enthusiast also suffered streptococcal meningitis four times. Her first bout came in 2017, presenting as a severe headache, flu-like symptoms, blurred vision, a stiff neck and difficulty walking.
“After the fourth time of getting bacterial meningitis, professionals actually realised I had a hole in my skull and the brain was sitting out of its sack, which was causing it,” she says.
“I had a craniotomy to fill up the hole, but it meant I had to lose my smell permanently.”
Despite her ongoing ups and downs, Jessica has kept her humour, and is surrounded by supportive friends, neighbours and family. But she wishes more people understood the full story behind her disability, rather than staring at her and wondering.
“I never used to leave my house without my eye until one day, while I was having coffee with my father-in-law and husband, I rubbed my eye and realised I didn’t have it in!” she laughs. “I asked Duane why he didn’t tell me and he hadn’t noticed either. He just sees me for me and we’re both happy that 20 years later, I’m still here.”
