“ A lifetime has passed, but he continues to be a symbol of the value that heroism implies, that of looking out for the collective good rather than the individual. He did it for the victims of the assault of that Sunday ”.
By Cristian Gasca and Óscar Durán.
The crudest misfortunes of destiny usually take years before they are assimilated in the judgment of their victims. Rosa Maria Sanchez assumed the unassumable in a matter of seconds: that she would never walk again. Such celerity was not the result of indifference or perhaps of an inopportune discernment that led her to ignore the permanent consequences of what she was experiencing. She did not. Instead, she was a prey to the instinct of survival. The chilling threat of eternal demise grips those wills powerful enough to cling to vitality. This is the reason why, after receiving two bullet impacts to the spine, Rosa adopted the temperance with which she needed to act. She no longer felt her body.
Moments of fluctuating emotional assault that arose in response to despair were counteracted. In decline
Because of the colossal motivation that impelled Rosa to use all her efforts to remain calm. She remembered that she was not only fighting for her own subsistence, but also for that of a little girl who was waiting for her. The fate of her daughter, barely three years old at the time, would worry her more than her own.
La Victoria is an old central neighborhood in the town of San Cristobal, in Bogota. It was there, on May 8, 1994, that the episode that completely altered the course of Rosa’s story took place. Whether it was for good or for bad is a design that, she discovered with time, she could choose on her own. She resolved, therefore, to take the first alternative. She had been a second corporal in the National Police since she completed her training at the Gonzalo Jimenez de Quesada School for Non-Commissioned Officers and Executive Level. She had been assigned to carry out surveillance work in the southeastern area of the capital, where the aforementioned urbanization was located.
On the night of the same Sunday, a century and three long decades later, Rosa went to attend to an alleged case of theft reported in the vicinity of her operational area. The streets of La Victoria are unmistakably Bogota. Numerous adjoining houses of shared materials are piled up there; on the terraces that several of them have, the presence of the dogs that bark at any passerby on the gray sidewalks that delimit each block never goes unnoticed. They do well, because it is not strange that crime and insecurity are constant causes of concern for residents. It was even less so in 1994.
Rosa arrived at the place along with one of her fellow security guards who was working with her at the time. He was also an agent of the National Police. Once there, both were witnesses of the veracity of the criminal act, a milestone to be verified before the frantic possibility of going to a false call. What is also reduced to an event of limited probability in the spontaneity of urban altercations is that criminals open fire with extreme promptness; sometimes even before trying to flee in order to avoid an armed confrontation. This time, they opted for the violent way. The fleeting nature of the incident took the duo by surprise. It was the moment when Rosa’s column was hit by the two projectiles. She quickly fell to the ground. It didn’t take too long to notice the evident affections: immediate paralysis and general numbness. The body of her companion lay nearby. She had died.
Rosa did not even have the time to digest such a fatality. The stillness that now conditioned her gave way to the idea of faking her death. She tried to do so. She appropriated the unprecedented restraint necessary to carry out this forced confabulation while she was aware of everything that had just happened around her. Reflecting on it would have taken him twice as long. The vicissitude yielded to the irreparable control of instantaneity. “These are dead”, said one of the delinquents, after removing the radio and the revolver that Rosa carried in her equipment. She heard everything.
With no further action to take, he then simply prayed to God that the frantic episode would end there before it got any worse. That the criminals would not contemplate firing another shot. Such an atrocity would only have been witnessed by the calm nocturnal atmosphere of the neighborhood streets. Cold, as usual. “My struggle at that moment was not to walk again, but to stay alive,” Rosa recalls.
Once she was assisted by the ambulance that arrived on the scene, she began to struggle with all her strength to resist the physical shocks of the attack. She let the paramedics at the alibi trial know that, in a short time, she had ruled on her survival. “If I make it to the hospital alive, I’m saved… If I make it alive, I’m saved”, was the incessant cry with which she approached the paramedics. Once in the clinical center, Rosa was informed of the adjacent mishaps whose consequences she already knew. She knew that her spinal cord had been hit by the impacts and she was also aware of what this implied. To be transported in a wheelchair. Not to count on the possibility of walking again.
The starkness of the revelations was not reason enough for his concern to focus on the nature of the revelations. His life was still in danger. He implored the physician in charge of his care to prevent his demise.
“Not to let me die was the only thing I kept telling him. I already knew I was going to be in a wheelchair, but I needed to save myself first”.
Perhaps the most important memory in that traumatic cycle for Rosa occurred during the day she woke up after being in stable condition, having overcome the onslaught of the injury, along with the hellish joust she had to go through to get it. The specialist body of clinical attention appeared in the hospital room with a wheelchair. They loaded the transport with some suspicion. They were unaware of the fact that Rosa was already aware of the limitation she would carry with her; even before being informed about it, the same reason why she invited the group to present themselves to her without reservation. She had to be instructed of the process to follow.
She often recalls with great evocation what that experience meant for her. It is admirable the great strength and tenacity with which she assumed the implications of what she experienced, her future disability and the drastic change in which she would be immersed from then on. This did not prevent her from eventually falling prey to the mental damage that invaded her as she carefully visualized her new means of mobility and reflected on the inescapable state of her permanence. However, Rosa’s relief quickly became a powerful foundation of overcoming whose gratification far surpassed the temporary decay that disturbed her: she saw herself as a person sheltered by the fortune that for her represented being able to see her family again and, especially, her daughter.
It is common for everyday life to cover up the importance of the most intimate relationships and, with them, the unbreakable bonds they forge. Rosa’s would be an unknown fortune if she did not count on the strength resulting from such bonds. The protective impulse of a mother who prioritizes the wellbeing of her little one before her own was felt as never before. Eventually, she would find herself more pleased than affected. More impacted by the opportunity than the damage. It’s a way of looking at life, one that few possess. As if she was the only one with the necessary frame of mind to overcome misfortune, she was confronted with misfortune itself. The belief in pre-established destinies is not always endorsed, and with just cause. However, it is experiences like Rosa’s that incite doubt. It is inevitable.
The subsequent medical report was conclusive: Rosa suffered from a modular lesion of level T6, a rutilant condition in which the patient loses sensibility from the height of the chest to the lower extensions of the body. An enormous somatic area. This kind of trauma can also generate serious limitations of voluntary control in the bladder and bowels, a condition typical of paraplegia. Some of the other common symptoms among people suffering the consequences of the same mishap include intense pain in the back and neck, frequent motor mobility limitations and chronic numbness in adjacent body areas.
interventions to which she was submitted, she saw with anticipation the consequent seriousness, as she agreed to keep in secrecy. She was more prepared for the moment of the official news rather than digesting the implications of it. It was unprecedented. The congeneric overcoming character he had shown during the stormy stretch of that night was still present in his actions.
It became irrefutable that the new customs of her daily life would be transformed into a challenge without equal; and yet, she confronted it with little less than the same sobriety with which she was forced to adopt the decision to fake her death in a situation of such a critical nature that, in the face of another pulse, it would have ended in the failure of any fierce attempt at survival. Character and guts. The real ones.
As impossible as it seemed at the time, Rosa managed to resist. From then on and driven by her incomparable maternal motivation, she would make each and every one of the dazzling changes of her endeavor worthwhile. She began an arduous process of recovery, but not before facing the complications of the time. Thirty years ago, the National Police found it impossible to accompany Rosa in her journey of integral redemption in the same way they could today.
By that date, the institution was subject to the policy of providing exclusive therapeutic care for members of the agency body who were still able to continue performing their usual functions in one way or another. This was, at least, what the professional in charge of the periodic check-ups that Rosa attended after her new condition stated. Consequently, she was then forced to take charge of her convalescence process on her own.
The personal experience of the patients who suffer Rosa’s disability shows that one of the fundamental priority aspects to be attended to is the adaptation to limited mobility. The physiotherapeutic work takes on vital importance. It was during the temporary course in which these requirements were presented that Rosa began to experience what she calls a “gender bias” which, of course, can be explained in no better way than by going to the understanding of the hegemonic social reality of the period of yesteryear in which she was living. “I lacked accompaniment. Yes. We have improved, although we have to continue. Some kind of negative difference is still felt for being a woman. What happens is that there are very few of us”, reflects Rosa, while highlighting her unconditional appreciation for the institution, indifferent to past situations.
It is precisely the undeniable obviousness of the gradual advance in gender equality from 1994 until today that makes the complications that, at that time, women like Rosa had to face even more evident. The first setback was disability. The condition did not discriminate. The second, not being a man. Much more selective. “I remember going once to a urologist who asked me to tell him more about my story because, in his words, he knew little about women with disabilities,” she continues.
“I think the issue is that there are more men than girls left in this situation. I don’t usually see any other women in the military or other armed forces in the same condition. I was able to find one of them in Santa Marta, who is also in a wheelchair. Sara Vega. I have known her for some time, she is a patrolwoman. I also recently heard of another one who was a victim of a stray bullet. She is from Manizales. There are only a few of us, maybe some of them are more reserved after this kind of events… Maybe they suffer a disability, they lock themselves in and there is no one to rescue them; because, well, nobody rescued me”, she concludes.
Time is the sublime judge of difficulties. Of all. The mishaps Rosa suffered after the attack were, for years, lamentable incidents that seemed to blacken the future. Today, they are the alibis of circumstances that glorify the path chosen by her own conviction. Along with her physical and psychological recovery, Rosa agreed to advance the emerging aspirations of her life project. She trained as a business administrator through technological discipline. She also worked in parallel applying her new knowledge in joint projects with the National Savings Fund and the National Police.
Thus it was that, progressively, he saw the opportunity to advance another very important task in his adaptation process. This would be added to her already profitable occupation: it was sports. Rosa soon ventured into two practices that, she would discover, she mastered with incredible dexterity; even more so after the training cycles she dedicated to perfecting her technique in these disciplines. One of them is sport shooting with pistol and rifle, a specialty consisting of hitting static targets from certain distances that require great marksmanship. Classic firearms are used.
Around the year 2008, Rosa was consecrated national champion in this section. It is mentioned with inappropriate ease. It is more accurate to recall the path she had to cross to become the winner of such a milestone. The path was characterized mainly by its uniqueness rather than by the difficulty of walking it. It is not complex to appropriate a trigger and execute the action for which it was built. What is praiseworthy is to have the necessary talent to make of that sequence an unequaled stroke, so much so that it turns out to be the best of all. A well-known formula: vocation and effort combined.
It is the difference between Rosa and her attackers. They all carried a weapon. All had a target. The intentions, even in the same situation, were so different as to generate damage in one of them, while hope and redemption in the other. It is not perceived in the same instants, of course, but it is sublime demonstration of the nature of a blazon… It is of no importance. It is not the artifact, but its bearer. Purpose is everything.
The lapses passed. Almost decades, again. The second discipline in which Rosa stood out with fervor was wheelchair fencing. At that time, the sport had no expertise at the national level. It was conspicuous by its absence. It was then that the U.S. Embassy, in alliance with the Directorate of Health, advanced an initiative so that uniformed men and women with disabilities could get involved in this Paralympic practice. Rosa traveled to North America and Argentina. With the help of the knowledge and experience acquired in the competitions held there, she returned to Colombia immersed in the throbbing desire to establish precedents for the popularization of the same competition in the local environment.
Her desire would find rapid execution. Rosa participated in the first edition of the National Games in which wheelchair fencers were integrated. There were about fifty athletes. It took place in 2019. The fact that should have surprised, although it no longer did, is that it was she who was crowned champion in the epee and saber division, while she achieved runner-up in the foil division. Adjectives may be inaccurate, but unprecedented is close. Prodigious in exact measure, of course.
To date, the discipline has achieved sufficient support and recognition to be held in a format of numerous leagues with close to one hundred specialized athletes. The expansion of the practice, together with the exorbitant progress in gender equality for the same people who practice it, are hopeful incentives that are often faceless. Thanks to Rosa’s willingness to agree to tell stories like hers, it is now known that identity is the last thing these gratifying improvements lack. She is part of both inside and outside. She is a pioneer.
Thirty years after that unpredictable night, Rosa can assure, with pride intact, that she has coped with a life for which she was never prepared in the best way. The pinnacle of her success is the independence she enjoys. Being able to fend for herself on a daily basis has been a source of relief that cannot be diminished by any implications of her disability. She does not conceive of the condition even under the specter of an inherently negative category. “For me, disability is an opportunity. Although I always wanted and loved my service work in the Police, being in a wheelchair made me realize that many of the things I did I might not have accomplished while in the institution. The main one is sports; I was not an athlete, but I became one. I was a champion and medalist, I traveled a lot, I did a thousand things… Everything is part of an opportunity that life gave me to continue,” she says.
The fulminating honor of her character never goes unnoticed, the underlying reason for the self-sufficiency that gratifies her being so much. Rosa is a woman who values, like few other qualities, that of needing the assistance of others in a quota similar to that of any other person. The unheard of thing is not that she longs for it, but that she has made it a reality throughout the last three decades with an impetus that is not abundant in the din of all personalities. It is an unparalleled behavioral disposition, one that is further reinforced by that intrinsic satisfaction of having seen his professional and family life continue to keep pace with the times. Her daughter is thirty-three years old now. The courage of an unwavering mother gave her the chance to experience the life stages that are most treasured in the final memories. It is the manifest. Courage causes pride.
If Rosa’s former daily life involved sacrifice and tenacity, her current one cannot be understood in a better way than as a sort of well-deserved reward. She frequents the Directorate of Veterans and Inclusive Rehabilitation (DIVRI) as part of the care program that the National Police eventually set up for members like her. She benefits from the comprehensive treatment services provided by the facility. Her routine there also includes the use of a swimming pool area, saunas and gymnasium, the latter benefit being extremely useful for Rosa as it allows her to advance her physical conditioning training for the sports practices in which she still performs.
His life continues to be linked to the home he always wanted: the National Police. So much time later. It is another of those inflexible ties that endure over time in the same way as they do in the feelings of those who form them. Rosa’s story is not intimately connected to the police only because of the years she was there, from the time she was a patrolwoman until she was assigned to San Cristobal for her promotion. The cause is different. The paths still intertwine because, after decades, she still represents what the institution also represents. What on the distant night of May 8, 1994, she also represented: honor.
A lifetime has passed, but he continues to be a symbol of the value that heroism implies, that of looking out for the collective good before the individual. He did it for the victims of the assault that Sunday. He did it for his daughter. The vocation of service was never lost and remains as intact as his own self-sufficiency. if it serves her now. It’s only fitting. How sacrifice is rewarded. He could spend another three decades under the same mandate. He continues to be fair.
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