Kentucky woman injured in Vista shooting released from the hospital
A Kentucky woman shot in the face during a gunfight in Columbia’s Vista district earlier this month has been released from the hospital.
“Denise Massey and I returned to scene of the crime,” Jimmy Brannon wrote in a public Facebook post Wednesday afternoon, which included video of Massey in the area of the shooting. “One more stop and we are on the road again.”
Massey was one of eight people injured during the violence in the popular downtown district in the early hours of Sept. 16. She and her boyfriend, Brannon, were visiting from Kentucky for the University of Kentucky’s football game against the University of South Carolina.
Brannon has posted Facebook updates on Massey’s condition since the shooting, which officials say was sparked by a music industry-related battle between two feuding groups from Newberry County. Four men have been charged in connection with the shooting.
Massey suffered a gunshot wound to the cheek area, Brannon wrote earlier. The bullet shattered some bone and exited the back of her neck without damaging her spinal cord.
Massey suffered a “pinching” of the carotid artery which caused a blood clot, according to Brannon, adding doctors are trying to dissolve the clot with blood thinners, as they try to avoid surgery.
Before the shooting, the couple were “having the time of our lives,” Brannon said in a post. He and Massey had checked into a Columbia hotel about 9:15 p.m. on Sept. 15 and decided to eat at Pearl’s Oyster Bar, he told the Lexington Herald-Leader, a sister publication of The State newspaper in Kentucky.
“We then went to the Vista neighborhood and met the nicest people,” he said. “We were talking about politics and football and having a good time. It was a very nice place, you could have brought kids there.”
Brannon announced in a Monday post that the couple is now engaged.
This story was originally published September 27, 2017 at 3:43 PM with the headline "Kentucky woman injured in Vista shooting released from the hospital."