Lee’s Summit gunshot survivor was told she may never walk, but recovery has been a ‘miracle’
On a sunny, cool morning, Brandi Fields used a cane to walk into Revolution Gym in Overland Park with a smile on her face, eager to work out for the first time in two months.
She had donned a shirt that read “Iron Adaptive,” a nonprofit which helps people with disabilities through adaptive training and mobility exercises, where Fields is the director of marketing and outreach. Fields has been training with the nonprofit since December, after being shot in a domestic violence incident in Lee’s Summit last June.
The cane Fields uses is from her stepfather, who had his leg amputated due to complications with diabetes. Leroy Blaylock Jr. died in May from what Fields suspects was a heart attack. He had several, lingering health issues, Fields said. Blaylock, who lived to age 60, is described in his obituary as a “good-hearted person” and a “family man that took pride in being the best husband, father, big brother” with an “infectious smile.”
Fields, however, knows him as her alleged shooter.
On the day of the shooting, Blaylock allegedly had a domestic dispute with Fields’ mother, when Fields stepped in to defend her. The dispute ended with Fields suffering from three gunshot wounds with one bullet still lodged in her spine, according to both Fields and court documents.
“This definitely was going to be a murder-suicide situation,” Fields said about the incident, as she prepared to work out.
That day — June 3, 2023 — what Fields now calls her ‘alive day’, saw her fight for her life and her mother’s life in their own home. More than one year later, Fields is still fighting, this time to walk again without assistance and live her active lifestyle while helping others do the same.
‘You’re going to pay for my funeral’
The day leading up to the shooting, Fields said, was a great day.
A registered nurse in Chicago, she had been in Kansas City for a week visiting family. Her day was full of food and fellowship as Fields and her loved ones went restaurant hopping around the city, enjoying the cuisine at different restaurants like Blue Sushi Sake Grill and Prime Social before settling at her aunt’s house in Kansas City, Kansas.
Fields was taking pictures in the street when one of her friends had a gut feeling they expressed out loud to others in their group. “This day feels eerily too good. We’re having too good of a time,” her friend said at the time, a sentiment he later shared with Fields.
Later at her aunt’s house, Blaylock got into an argument with Fields’ mom. The argument spilled outside, where Blaylock objected to how much time Fields was spending with her mother during her trip home.
“Jealousy, that’s what it came down to,” Fields said.
Fields said she’d seen her stepfather be aggressive with her mother before, prompting her to stand on the porch, watching the argument. Blaylock saw Fields watching, and provoked her to fight.
“You standing there looking like you want to do something, so come on down here and do something,” Blaylock said, according to Fields. Fields tried to diffuse the situation at first, but a comment from Blaylock about her relationship with her mother, which she admits is complicated, set her off. She cussed at him and kicked the driver side window of his truck before he left with his grandson and the family dogs.
After talking with family members, Fields took a drive to cool off before returning to her aunt’s home.
Moments later, Fields’ mother saw Blaylock on their doorbell camera walk out of their Lee’s Summit home with a gun. Her mother got a call from Blaylock’s son, who said his father asked him for a gun.
Court documents and Fields say Blaylock tested his own gun at his residence first, before going to get another gun from his son. Fields told Blaylock’s son she knew the gun was for her and gave him a simple, unsettling message.
“You’re going to pay for my funeral if I die tonight,” Fields said.
‘You’re not gonna kill my child’
With her mother and two cousins in tow, Fields made the drive home to Lee’s Summit, where cameras in the home showed Blaylock sitting in his wheelchair in the living room facing the garage door, which was five steps away. The living room had a bed in it where Blaylock allegedly hid the gun under the covers, Fields and records say. Fields estimates Blaylock waited more than two hours for them to come home.
Footage shown to The Star and court records show Fields’ mother going into the house looking for the gun, while Fields and her cousins watched on a phone from the car. Blaylock hid the gun under his shirt and repeatedly told her to get Fields to come in the house, while Fields’ mother repeated a chilling statement.
“I’m not gonna let you kill my child,” she said.
Blaylock responded with his own bone-chilling statement.
“You gonna go too,” he told her.
Fields’ mother met Fields in the garage, where they made plans to leave. But Fields didn’t want to leave Blaylock in the house with a gun. Her mother convinced her to let her walk in the house one more time.
Fields’ mother turned out the lights in the living room and began looking for her keys. As she returned to the garage door, Blaylock followed her, and began shooting into the garage.
The recoil from the first shot knocked Blaylock off his feet. He turned to his side as Fields opened the door and continued firing. Fields put her left arm up to block the shot, causing one of the bullets to hit a bone in her arm instead of her face. Her mother screamed while wrestling the gun away from Blaylock.
Fields knew she was hit and badly injured, as she faded in and out of consciousness.
“I felt myself about to die,” Fields said. As part of her nature, she now laughs at her thoughts and prayers to God in the moments she thought her life was over.
“I’m laying there on my back. I’m like, ‘Damn, this is how I’m about to go out,’” she said.
Fields rolled over to call 911, gave dispatch her address, and told them her stepfather shot her before passing out. Doctors told her later the shots paralyzed her instantly, making her 911 call remarkable.
“I’m really a miracle,” she now concedes.
‘She’s fierce’
Fields woke up in the intensive care unit in critical condition. She suffered an incomplete T6/T7 spinal cord injury, has a bullet lodged in her spine and a rod in her left arm. She suffered an incomplete spinal cord injury, when the spinal cord is partially damaged, allowing some feeling and movement below the injury site. Doctors had to take a vein from Fields’ leg to create a new artery in her arm, she said.
Blaylock allegedly told Lee’s Summit police Fields “jumped him” and pushed him down in a prior incident and he wouldn’t let that happen again, according to court records. Records say Blaylock allegedly told police he didn’t care if Fields died or was paralyzed.
The Lee’s Summit High graduate first watched the footage of the shooting in the intensive care unit. Fields still watches it often, especially when she gets in angry moods, and has collected most of the videos she and her family took that day. In the car ride to the house before the shooting, she told her mom and cousins she would rather be the one hurt than them, but now she questions why it all played out the way it did.
“Why did I survive?” Fields wonders when she watches the footage.
Fields said doctors gave her a very low chance of movement and sensory function below her breastplate. She uses a wheelchair for longer distances, can walk unassisted for spells, like during workouts, and primarily uses her cane and crutches to walk. The left side of her body is the most affected, as the range of motion in her left leg is limited.
Her condition caused her to be unemployed for more than six months after the shooting, and her insurance only covers limited resources. After her hospital stay, Fields underwent physical therapy and was part of a 12 week fitness, nutrition and mental health program with nonprofit organization, Disabled But Not Really.
Fields met Nicholas Orlando, Iron Adaptive’s director of program development, at last year’s Midwest Ability Summit, an expo for service providers to the disabled community. Fields began training with Orlando last December, and joined Iron Adaptive’s team in July.
“She has an amazing heart and amazing drive, and she’s fierce,” Orlando said about Fields. Orlando programs workouts tailored to each individual, and sees Fields push herself in every workout.
“She knows she wants to fight for people,” he said. “When she wanted to come on board, I was like, ‘Yeah, please. We need more people like you.’”
Fields attended Texas-based nonprofit Adaptive Training Foundation’s nine week course over the summer, where she trained with more than 100 members of the disabled community. She came back inspired to be a leader for Iron Adaptive to replicate similar training programs in Kansas City.
Iron Adaptive currently trains 15 athletes in Kansas City.
“I’ve seen what we could do here that they did in Texas,” Fields said. “My mindset was ‘All right, you can always work out, but now it’s time to put that into Iron Adaptive.”
Fields is driven, despite the daily reminders in her life about the shooting: the home she lives in with her mother, the garage door which must remain closed for her peace of mind, some equipment from her dead stepfather that she now uses, shrapnel that still pokes through her skin and needs to be removed, the eight daily medications for physical and mental anguish.
Her mother was her stepfather’s caregiver, and now she has wound up being her daughter’s caregiver as well.
Blaylock was charged with three felonies, according to court records, and could have faced up to 14 years in prison if convicted, Fields said. Fields said she rejected plea deals for house arrest and no jail time from his defense attorney. Trial was slated for mid-May this year, but was postponed for Fields’ trip to Texas.
In January, Blaylock had a medical issue that caused him to be placed on a ventilator in the ICU, according to Fields. Fields and her mother had restraining orders issued against him, but Fields’ mother still kept in touch with Blaylock and visited him in the hospital. Fields took the opportunity to visit Blaylock as well and tell him her deep, haunting thoughts six months after the shooting.
“Six months ago, you put me in a position just like this where I almost lost my life,” she said to him, “and now it’s ironic how I’m able to stand before you after being paralyzed and watch you fight for yours. Karma’s gonna come after you.”
Blaylock died on May 15.
‘I’ll be able to walk unassisted’
In the gym, Fields is a force to be reckoned with, Orlando said.
A former basketball player and track athlete, Fields attacked her workout, which included exercises on a rowing machine, biking and walking across the gym with a sandbag. She has a lot of physical independence currently, being able to drive and travel around the city on her own, as she works as a triage nurse from home and still lives with her mother.
She hopes to gain financial independence soon, but knows it’s a hard journey. Fields started a GoFundMe to acquire an electric wheelchair attachment that would lessen the pain of rolling in a wheelchair. She has since acquired the attachment and is directing additional funds to Iron Adaptive.
“It’s expensive being disabled,” Fields said.
Fields wants to create an artistic documentary about her shooting, and train other people with disabilities while rebuilding and maintaining the active lifestyle she had once before.
Sometimes loud noises trigger Fields’s post traumatic stress and anxiety, but she doesn’t let that stop her, she said. She’ll be the first person in a group to make a dark joke and crack a smile.
While her life has been altered, Fields wants to encourage people with disabilities to keep pushing for their goals. Sometimes Fields or her mother will even catch her walking without a cane without thinking about it, one of her own top goals.
She takes that as a sign of things to come.
“You know how God put signs in front of you,” she said. “I’m always forgetting my cane because I’m always forgetting that I need it. So I’m like, maybe that’s a sign that eventually, I’ll be able to walk unassisted.”
This story was originally published October 25, 2024 at 6:00 AM.
