Elizabeth Kogo, a Gender-Based Violence survivor, narrated how she lived to tell the story of an attempt on her life by her boyfriend in the US.
In her book, Rescued From The Jaws of Death, she recounts the events that followed after her partner, Gideon Maiyo, learned of a get-together party Kogo's colleagues had organised to celebrate her birthday.
On that fateful day, she went home and found her lover with a gun in his hand and threatened to kill her.
She tried persuading him not to shoot but he was hellbent on killing her. He pulled the trigger but the gun did not fire.
“I was sweating and trembling, pleading with him to spare my life as I remembered my son Florian and my six siblings and mother, who were looking up to me for support. But he could not listen. When he pulled the trigger, the gun jammed… God had jammed it,” she recalled.
He then reached for a hammer and smashed her with it eight times before it got lodged inside her skull.
A neighbour who heard her cries for help called the police who responded in time to save her life.
Authorities found her lying in a pool of blood with brain matter oozing from her head. She was rushed to hospital where doctors did all they could to try and save her life.
After a surgical procedure to remove the hammer, she was moved to the hospital's high dependency unit where she lay in a coma for a month.
At one point, the doctors asked Kogo's mother, Regina, to travel to the US and sign papers allowing her to pull the plug on her daughter's life support machine.
On arrival at the hospital, she declined to sign the forms and insisted on praying for Kogo.
“My mum was sure if she stood beside me and made a prayer for divine healing, miracles could happen and we would walk,” Kogo recounted.
After the brush with death, she had to undergo physical, occupational and psychological therapy to recover her speech, ability to walk and general body coordination.
Kogo has since travelled back to Kenya and is now a champion against Gender-Based Violence after studying Social Science at the university.
As for her attacker, Gideon, he was arrested after crashing his vehicle in the car chase with police that followed the heinous act.
He was convicted to serve 15 years in prison. The judge ordered that as soon as he completes his jail term, he be deported back to his homeland in Kenya.
