ALMLIE Jazmin

Classification
SH2 (IPC, 04 Aug 2021)

Type of Impairment
Spinal Cord Injuries (usashooting.org, 15 Dec 2015)

Origin of Impairment
Acquired (usashooting.org, 15 Dec 2015)

Impairment Details
She has paralysis in her lower back as the result of progressive myelopathy [compression of the spinal cord] after being bitten on the hip by a brown recluse spider in her senior year of high school, and has used a wheelchair since age 22. The condition also affects her hands and arms. "I didn't even realise I was bitten until doctors told me later. With brown recluse spiders, it just necrotises the skin around the bite, and then what happened with me, because I was overweight at the time, it necrotised in instead of out. All you saw was this little red spot, but when they opened it out because it got infected, it looked like a bomb had gone off inside my body, it was almost all the way to the bone. I started having the neurological symptoms of my disability - losing some balance, motor function in my legs, fatigue. At the end, the doctors think it was something that set off an immune response." (Angel City Sports YouTube channel, 30 Jul 2021; usashooting.org, 15 Dec 2015)

General
STOLEN WHEELCHAIR
In March 2021 her custom-made wheelchair was stolen from her driveway in Cypress, TX, United States of America. A few weeks later the police found the perpetrator and returned the wheelchair to her. A community fundraiser was also set up to replace her stolen wheelchair. "[The perpetrator] confessed, basically he stated it was an accident, that he thought it was scrap metal. I shoot from that chair. The problem is that I can't go anywhere in the chairs that I'm in. I can't get into my house, I can't get to the bathroom. So what I'm going to do is take one of my chairs that I had previously, improve it, change the wheels and tires, and donate it back into the community. If you think about it, it got a lot of exposure for Paralympic sports in general because it was on the news." (Angel City Sports YouTube channel, 30 Jul 2021; click2houston.com, 12 Jul 2021, 04 Mar 2021; houstonchronicle.com, 06 Mar 2021; abc13.com, 06 Mar 2021)

MOTHERHOOD
She returned to training two weeks after giving birth to her first child, Rebekah, in 2015 to pursue competing at the 2016 Paralympic Games in Rio de Janeiro. "I got pregnant the final year before the [2016] Games. [My husband and I] had been trying for about nine years at that point. My coach was like, 'Yay, you're pregnant but are you kidding? This is the wrong time to get pregnant.' So I came back to training two weeks later [after giving birth]. Two months later, I qualified for the 2016 Games, and two months after that I got to go to Rio. That whole year in itself was an amazing thing." (Angel City Sports YouTube channel, 30 Jul 2021)

COACHING
She has worked as a rifle coach for the Houston Parks and Recreation Department in Texas, United States of America. (Facebook profile, 17 Jul 2021)