Ft. Hood survivor returns home to Clear Lake

By Jessica Willey

CLEAR LAKE, TX (KTRK) -- Thirteen people died and more than two dozen were wounded during a shooting rampage at Fort Hood. One of the wounded is Specialist Dayna Ferguson, who returned home to Clear Lake Wednesday.

There was no big party inside the Ferguson home, but there is a celebration.

"It's great to be here and have her here," Ferguson's mother, Leva, said.

Dayna Ferguson eased out of the car and into the arms of her fiancé. After spending six days in a hospital at Fort Hood, she is back home and talking about the nightmare.

"I saw him, and then he shot me, like, two seconds later," she said.

Ferguson was inside the processing center last Thursday afternoon, preparing for her deployment to Iraq later this month. She said she heard gunshots first before seeing the shooter, even though he was just two feet away.

"I got shot in my leg and arm, and it went through my chest and collapsed my lung," Ferguson said. "The one in my leg went up through my stomach, and they had to operate in my stomach."

It took more than seven hours for her parents to get any answers.

"(The situation was) just hell on earth," father Jim Ferguson said. "You don't know -- it's awful. You see that man's picture on TV and you think, 'This man just put some bullets in your baby girl.'"

Jim and Leva Ferguson immediately rushed to their daughter's side, but it took a little longer for her fiancé, soldier Randy Roscoe, to get there. A week ago, he was sitting in a tent in Iraq.

"I just felt hopeless," Roscoe said. "There's nothing I could do over there. I just wanted to get home."

Army officials were able to get him home Monday. Since then, Danya Ferguson has had another surgery and has met the president. Now home, her father doesn't want to ever let her go.

"I'm going to board her up in her room and not going to let her out again," Jim Ferguson said. "The army had their chance, now she's home, and I'm going to take care of her for the rest of my life, til I die."

They have yet to think about a homecoming beyond this quiet one of balloons and signs. They are just grateful, a feeling 13 other families do not have.

"We're very fortunate," Leva Ferguson said. "Watching that memorial and thinking that we could have been there."

Doctors said Danya Ferguson should make a full recovery. Her father said that she bears no ill will toward Maj. Nadal Hasan. For now, he said, she plans to take some time off and rest, and she and Roscoe are still planning for an April wedding.


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