MIAMI COAST, FLA. (WSVN) – A South Florida woman is speaking out, one year after she survived a shootout on Interstate 95 that left her with a bullet in the neck.
Speaking to reporters at a news conference held Tuesday in Miami Shores, Esha Dawkins said she and her son Sam are especially grateful this Thanksgiving week.
“I’m just grateful to be here, we always have something to be grateful for, and that’s life,” she said. “However, we don’t know who did this or what happened. I was literally just an innocent driver driving home.”
The Florida Highway Patrol said Dawkins came under fire along the southbound lanes of I-95 near Northwest 103rd Street in Northwest Miami-Dade in what they described as a roadside shootout.
“I heard the first shot, I didn’t think it was a gunshot, I thought it was fireworks,” Dawkins said. “It was two days before Thanksgiving and I just kept driving. The second shot I heard, I felt the glass hit me.”
That second bullet pierced the passenger side of her windshield, just inches from the backseat where Sam was sitting, and lodged in her neck, where it remains.
“It came through the windshield, on my neck, and it’s in the back, a miracle or just, you know, it wasn’t my time – wrong place, wrong time,” Dawkins said. “It is still unnerving to see other shootings happening on South Florida highways and not knowing what can be done about them.”
Miraculously, Dawkins survived, with the bullet missing a major artery and her spine. However, the experience deeply affected both her and her son.
“I told him to hold me… Mommy loves you. I might not make it,” Dawkins said.
Troopers have not yet identified the shooters responsible, and now Dawkins is calling for more enforcement of the highways.
“Pray that they will get more cameras on 95 in certain areas because it’s sad that to this day I don’t know who did it,” Dawkins said.
“More cameras on I-95 would certainly help. It’s clearly a thing, that technology exists,” said attorney Willard Shepard. “This needs to be funded.”
To get cameras on I-95, the state Legislature would have to fund that initiative through the Florida Department of Transportation.
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