Houston officer on road to recovery after being shot
HOUSTON (KTRK) -- Houston Police officer Ronny Cortez is now home after spending months in the Texas Medical Center, recuperating from being shot.
Yesterday, we showed you video of Cortez leaving TIRR Memorial Hermann after seven months of rehab.
Today, he told Eyewitness News about his fight to recover and his remarkable memories of that fateful day.
Cortez said he remembers being shot while investigating a burglary, and what he did in the moments after being shot: he told jokes.
The officer says he was trying to make his fellow officers laugh so they would be at ease in the midst of a very serious situation.
Houston officer takes first steps since being shot
Cortez was shot once in the neck, in the stomach and in the spine. The bullet that hit his spine was only recently removed.
Being home for the first time in months, Cortez cannot walk and can only feel his body from the chest up.
He is able to grip with his hands, still maintaining a very strong grasp even after all the physical challenges he's had to overcome.
"The bad part of being in the hospital was I was away from my family," Cortez said. "That was the hardest."
"When things happen to you like this you in an instant, you don't have time to absorb it, get used to it, this was thrown at us in a second," she said.
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