Pictures of the Year International

MThe Silent Toll of Gunshot Injuries: The number of deaths only tells part of the story. In the shadows, hundreds of Minnesotans hurt by gunfire struggle to repair their lives. “I am thankful for my life,” Tyrece Matthews said as he celebrated Thanksgiving at his girlfriend’s home. Matthews is mostly paralyzed from the waist down after he was shot two years ago; he is determined to walk again. More than two years later, the memory of that night still haunts Tyrece Matthews. He had just pulled up in front of his St. Paul home and grabbed his phone to check an alert when a pair of gunmen ambushed him, firing dozens of bullets into his car. One hit Matthews' spine, leaving the 42-year-old mostly paralyzed from the waist down. The shocking surge in gun violence that has defined this decade in Minnesota and the rest of the country is usually measured in deaths, and that toll has been grim: Between 2020 and 2022, 486 Minnesotans were killed in shooting homicides, according to the state Bureau of Criminal Apprehension. But homicides reveal only part of the story. Far from public view are the hundreds of men, women and children such as Matthews, struggling to put their lives back together after surviving gunshot injuries. https://www.startribune.com/minnesotans-survived-gunshot-injuries-theyre-still-putting-their-lives-back-together-deaths-guns/600329945/