Larissa Camp’s life changed forever after she lost part of her hand to a close-range gunshot. “I put my hand directly in front of the gun,” Camp recalled to 11Alive. “And I hear a loud bang, I see smoke, my ears are ringing.”
“The second bullet goes through my arm, and through some layers of skin on my chest and through the door,” she said, recounting how she survived intimate partner violence in 2004.
Despite losing all of the fingers on her right hand, she is thankful to be alive. “I knew in that moment I was saved, I knew I was saved,” she said. “I knew it was an encounter with God and that changed my life forever.”
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Camp didn’t let her situation stop her from chasing her dreams as she rebuilt her life with amazing strength and she is now a talented hairstylist.
Finding her passion for hairstyling also happened “on accident”, she said. Her mother used to do her hair with a pressing comb while growing up with her. “… She burned me at one point and I fired her. I learned how to do it myself,” she laughed.
“I always thought that I couldn’t do it because I am right hand dominate,” she said.
Today, Camp has numerous clients as a hairstylist, and many of these clients have never noticed that her right hand has no fingers.
“If you have a gift, a lot of people sit down on it, because they feel like it’s something they can’t reach, or it’s too late, and that’s not true. It takes maybe, sheer willpower,” she said.
With that sheer willpower, Camp is cutting away the stigma of domestic violence through her job, she told 11Alive.
“When I completed my degree, I cried, I shouted, I jumped for joy. Because it’s a testament that the gifts God has given you, no man can take away from you,” she said.
Using her experience, Camp speaks to others going through domestic violence to help them find ways to come out of it.
“As a transformational speaker, I am deeply committed to helping people heal and transform their lives, particularly those who have survived domestic violence and individuals with disabilities,” she says on her website.
“Having personally walked this path and emerged stronger, I am passionate about empowering others to reclaim their strength and rebuild their lives.”
In the United States, an average of 24 people per minute are victims of rape, physical violence or stalking by an intimate partner, figures show. Domestic violence, or intimate partner violence (IPV), results in nearly 1,300 deaths and 2 million injuries annually.
These numbers are scary, but Camp believes that things will get better.
