BALL GROUND, Ga. — Tina Davis' story is one of bravery and recovery. The Cherokee County woman tried to leave her marriage, only to be shot several times back in 2018.
Her estranged husband, Ronald Richard Goss, is now sentenced to 65 years in prison for trying to kill her.
Davis remembers that day like it was yesterday.
"He came around the corner to the bathroom and he said, 'I told you, this couldn't happen. There ain't nobody else gonna have you,' and he started shooting," she recalled. "As soon as I saw that gun, I thought you have got to be kidding me. It was crazy."
She was shot seven times by Goss. Davis tells 11Alive he cut the power to the house, and shot open a door to get inside to her master bathroom. She had just installed a new power system three days prior.
"I thought what is going on? Then I heard the door open up," she said. "I didn't see it coming at all because he had never been physically violent with me. Once I was on the floor I remember plainly thinking, I am not dying not today and not like this. I never lost consciousness."
Goss shot Davis in the chest, left forearm, left thumb, left shoulder, right hip and head, "causing internal injuries as well as a spinal injury that left her with no feeling from the waist down."
"The first bullet hit me in the chest," she said. "That was through and through. It actually, instead of going straight through and taking out my lung and my shoulder blade, it tipped up and came out higher on my back. If you put your finger in the exit wound it's directly over my spine. So I don't know how in the world I didn't have a spinal cord injury higher than what I did."
The district attorney's account also notes that at some point as he unloaded gunfire at Davis, "a bullet ricocheted and struck Goss in the face."
That's when he called 911. SWAT teams and emergency personnel responded, rushing Davis to the hospital.
"He put the power out so it was dark," she said. "One of the bullets ricocheted and took out his right eye so he couldn't see well. He came over to shoot me on the head, but I was laying face down on the floor and it ricocheted off the tile floor."
You can see the 40-caliber bullet sitting crossways on her cheek in the photo below.
According to an account by the DA's office, Goss, 57, showed up the day before unannounced and asked if their marriage could be saved. Davis turned him away, saying she wanted to go through with a divorce.
He then returned to the house early the next morning, knowing his wife of nearly 10 years would awake around 5 a.m.
"He was coming through the kitchen saying, 'You're such a creature of habit. You didn't even hear me pulling in. I was outside the window watching you get one shirt, put it back and get another,' which is exactly what I did," Davis recalled.
More than 15 surgeries, dental procedures, and 450 hours of physical therapy later, Davis, who was a Les Mills fitness instructor, has been able to dance with her son on his wedding day.
"That was actually what I worked for the entire time. It's just love in its purest form, she said. "It really, really was. I was just so thankful. That's a special thing you want to do with your kids," she said.
Davis has also started a running non-profit, Tina's Cat Run, to help raise awareness about domestic violence.
The organization has split the $23,000 donated within the four years of its inception, to women's shelters and family violence centers, including the North Georgia Mountain Crisis Network.
Davis, who still keeps in touch with the first responders who helped her that morning, has a message for other women going through similar situations.
"Even though he didn't physically abuse me [prior to this], he did emotionally and mentally," she said. "Any kind of abuse is unacceptable. Get out while you can because you don't know what's going to set it off and how far it's going to escalate."
Goss has been sentenced to 65 years in prison. Davis tells 11Alive he has written her letters from jail several times, and has gotten in trouble for it. She says none of them have been apologetic.
"To this day, I don't think he really acknowledges what he did. I'm sure his lawyers directed him to plead guilty because there was no way that he could get out of it," she said. "He still has never said, 'I'm sorry'. I'm just I'm looking forward to him just being sent away. Paying for what he did."
To find out more about her non-profit, click here.