Arthur Abbey was shot near Locust and Crescent streets in October 2017.

"I know when I woke up I couldn’t talk. I couldn’t move I couldn’t talk, so that was a real life-changing situation,” says Abbey more than one year after the shooting.

The bullet went through his neck and left Abbey paralyzed from the shoulders down. Anissa Quinn is now the primary caretaker of her 27-year-old son.

“This gun violence is terrible compared to when I was growing up. I ain’t never seen so much gun violence in my life,” says Quinn. “People don’t really think about it until something happens to a person you love."

Abbey says that 2017 day started like any other.

"I was on my way to get my son from basketball practice,” he says. That's when everything ended up happening,"

Abbey was transported to Genesis Medical Center and then taken to a hospital in Iowa City. His condition was unstable.

Quinn says doctors resuscitated her son at least five times as he fought for his life on a hospital bed. Doctors told Quinn that her son would not make it. If he did, brain damage was a real possibility.

"I never thought it'd be one of my kids. Arthur is not into nothing, you know, gun violence. He doesn't even mess with guns,” says Quinn. “I don’t know, it’s crazy how one minute you can be just up about and doing whatever you want to do. And in the blink of an eye, anything can change."

Abbey survived the shooting and escaped any form of brain damage, but life as he knew it changed.

"It hurts me that when I see my kids, I can't touch them,” says Abbey. "Trying to cope with that was hard. It’s been over a year now and now it’s like, I’m used to being like this. It’s not how I want to be, but there’s nothing I can do to change it besides take baby steps to get better."

Quinn quit her job to provide full-time care for her son, who at the moment is bedridden on the second floor of the home.

“Everyone is up here, I cook up here so he can smell the food,” says Quinn. “I just didn’t want him to feel alone down there, we need to keep Arthur up, high.”

Finances are tight, and the family is struggling to provide Abbey with the accommodations he needs. Quinn wants to find a home and transportation that are handicap accessible for her son.

“God forbid, if there’s a fire or some emergency, I’m scared that I won’t be able to get him out,” says Quinn.

Surrounded by family and friends that drop in for visits, Abbey maintains a positive outlook.

"They told me I was never going to walk again, they told me I wasn’t going to get off this vent. I've been testing myself, and I was off it for 8 minutes,” says Abbey. “So you know, if I can do that, anything is possible."

Improvement may seem far off, but along with abbey's recovery, the family hopes safety can be restored back into their community. Davenport police say no arrests have been made for the shooting that happened over a year ago.

"Gun violence, I just wish there would be an end to all that."