Grace Costa, a victim of domestic abuse, has two versions of the story that happened on Christmas night in 2012 when her ex boyfriend broke into her home. In the first story, her son and daughter were at home eating dinner. In the second story, only she and her daughter ate dinner that night, but it might have been 2013 instead. For some reason, there was a half-eaten apple on the kitchen floor. As Costa describes the night, she cries and stops and continues describing it in disjointed phases. At some point, a phone cord had been used to tie her hands behind her back. She fell to the ground as her ex boyfriend began punching her daughter repeatedly in the face. When police arrived on the scene, she was up and down again. She had been punched, strangle and thrown against the car hard. She tried not to black out because of the blood and her daughter. The police were not there and suddenly they were. …show more content…
She does not remember the exact diagnosis, but she suffered hearing loss, anxiety, poor memory, vertigo and ringing in her ears. Grace also believes that being slammed against the car left her with a bad hip that causes a limp. They took Costa, her daughter and her ex boyfriend all to the same hospital. They deemed Costa at high risk for a domestic abuse homicide. As a result, they found him guilty of attempted murder and put him in prison for several years, but Grace continues to live with the constant reminder of that night because of a brain injury. Around 50 percent of domestic abuse victims are strangled at some point in the relationship. This is what puts them at the highest risk for strokes, aspiration and blood clots. Because of these attacks, many will endure a brain injury for the lack of oxygen to the brain. To make matters worse, abusers will often follow their attacks up with blunt-force trauma to the head. That increases the risk even