Will Thomas hasn't been able to walk since January 2005 when some guys he had a beef with shot five bullets into his body.

For a while after that, he says he gave up, got angry, shut down.

But then he got determined, and that helped him laugh again.

That comes out best when he tells a story about falling out of his wheelchair, which he takes down a flight of stairs every day.

Probably get myself together about that means something to eat, slide down the stairs off the rail, boom, boom, boom, boom, by myself.

Out of the chair?

No, in the chair.

Okay.

Yeah, lean forward, hold on to the rail, boom, one step at the time, going backwards, boom, boom, go down on the stairs right there. Go down fast, go down slow. One hand on my phone, talking snap. See, that's how I'd be falling right there, trying to be show off. Like, yeah, yeah, I'm coming down the stairs right now. The last time I feel, I felt in, like, super slow motion. It took me like three and a half minutes to fall.

And I did it so cool, like so nonsense, lump.

Like the person I was on the phone with it, they couldn't even believe I felt.

Like man, I think I'm about to fall.

Man, I'm about to fall.

Man, I'm falling.

I didn't feel, but. Like, man,, where you at now? I'm on the ground.

I'm sorry. You tell stories well.

No, that's facts, man.

He's fallen a lot, he says, but he keeps getting back up. From the team that brought you accused in

collaboration with the trace, this is Aftermath, a podcast about gunshot survivors. I'm Amber Hunt.

When we reporters cover mass shootings, we face criticism.

Yes, that mass shooting was tragic, but what about the violence that happens every single day in cities across America?

There might be twice as many people shot overnight in any given city as there were in that single incident you've got splashed all over the front page.

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