ATLANTA — Brandon Robertson gets around with the help of his family. For the 30-year-old Birmingham native, family is everything. Robertson, a former football star at several local high schools, now calls Atlanta home.
Robertson had to lean on family more than ever after a July 2020 shooting on Cherry Laurel Lane in Southwest Atlanta. The shooting paralyzed him from the waist down.
"My girlfriend at the time got into an argument," Robertson said. "I’m trying to break it up. Next thing I know, I hear gunshots ring out. I got shot in my shoulder, my stomach, that’s the one that hit my spinal cord, and then one that hit my leg and came out at the bottom.”
The wounds landed Robertson in a wheelchair, making it harder for him to get around. The incident happened during the height of the pandemic and Robertson had to go weeks without seeing his loved ones.
"Going from walking everywhere, being fully independent, not having to ask anybody for anything to basically just being a child again and having to ask my mom whenever I want to move to come move me," Robertson said. "I was basically a child again. The thing that helped me a lot was a lot of prayer. Now, I’m living basically independently, it’s me and my little brother.”
Robertson needed constant attention during his recovery, relying on his mother and younger brother to rotate him in bed every few hours and attend to other basic needs.
Court records show earlier this month, a judge sentenced Robertson's shooter to five years in prison, around two decades of probation and 500 hours of community service. Robertson said there were several people inside the home at the time he was shot, but he was the only one wounded.
"You gotta make better decisions," Robertson said. "He basically threw his whole life away. Now he's a felon at this point. Even though he’ll be out in five years, he’ll have a whole new life to adjust to as well."
Robertson is hoping to buy a new wheelchair to try and compete in accessible sports to build strength. He's also hoping to build a new life with new memories with family at the center.
"Even though this is my brand new, I'm not going to allow it to stop me," Robertson said. "I'm basically showing that anybody in a wheelchair, we can do anything we want to. Seeing how my family worked for me, I can't have a choice but to keep going."
To learn more about Robertson's effort to buy a new wheelchair, click here.