AUBURNDALE, Fla.,None — A Polk County officer described how she survived when a suspect ambushed her and sprayed a barrage of bullets at her with an assault rifle.
Auburndale officer Stacy Booth was hit several times in the September shooting, and she had to drag herself to safety in this incredible story of survival.
Two months after being shot twice with a high-powered assault rifle, Auburndale police officer Stacy Booth was ready to tell her story.
"You never think it's going to happen to you," she said. "They had to take an artery from my lower left leg."
She showed her right arm where the first bullet hit. The other struck her stomach just below her bulletproof vest.
She said the bullet traveled "through my colon and intestines, through my pelvic bone and exited out my back."
Officer Booth had responded to a home off Diamond Ridge Drive after a 911 call from a frightened 8-year-old child.
The child's parents had been in a fight. By the time officer Booth got there, mom and son were gone.
But Wayne Michael Lester was still there, and when Booth walked up to the house, investigators said he opened fired.
"I can tell you that my family ran through my head," Booth said.
Booth was able to drag herself to a neighbor's house. She was airlifted to a hospital in Lakeland, where she she spent six days in intensive care and 20 days total in the hospital before she was finally allowed to go home.
Through all of it, Booth says the prayers of her family and the community kept her spirits up. But she says it was the first responders who saved her life.
"The initial guys, the firefighters, those are the true heroes," Booth said.