Path of a Bullet

Gilbert Salinas’ tan work boots are spotless, uncreased, practically brand new. They keep his feet warm, but that's about all they're good for.

They've never slogged through mud or gotten grass-stained or soaked up saltwater.

Boots that do nothing will stay looking new for a long time. And former gang member Salinas, 22, hasn't walked in 5 1/2 years.

He's been in a wheelchair, paralyzed from the waist down since March 10, 1991, when he was 17 and a fellow gang member accidentally shot him in the spine while trying to convert a semiautomatic handgun to fully automatic.

Doctors said he would never walk again, and so far, they've been right.

Three days a week he has physical therapy at Rancho Los Amigos Medical Center in Downey. During each hour-long session, he stretches his withered legs, a process that is helping straighten them out, but makes his underutilized stomach and hip muscles sore.

“They're going to fit me for my braces soon,” Salinas says. But before he gets hip-to-ankle braces, he'll first have to go through outpatient surgery for his ankles, which aren't responding to therapy.

Doctors will cut into his ankle muscles to help them stretch, then put his legs in casts for six weeks, putting therapy on hold. But it's a necessary evil.

“If I tried to walk now (in braces), I could fall, or my ankles could be ruined,” Salinas says. After five years of idleness, six weeks is a small price to pay for a chance at a meaningful life.

During the past 10 years, the spinal injury patient population at Rancho has shifted from being mostly diving and vehicle accident victims to more than half people who were paralyzed by gunshot wounds.

For Salinas, rehabilitation is a way to get on with his life, five years and a three-year prison stint after the bullet ripped into his spine, lodging in his lower back and leaving him with very little movement and very little sensation from his hipbones down. He doesn't wallow in his limitations, but he is acutely aware of how much different his life is today from the way it was.

“The first questions I asked the doctor, was ‘Am I going to be able to have kids?’” he said, “but I can take care of my business.” He is sexually active, but suffers from recurrent bladder infections.

About six months after the shooting, he regained a little feeling in his thighs, but that's been the extent of his recovery.

Today, he lives with a friend's grandmother in a house with a wheelchair ramp. She has diabetes and is a double amputee, so her home was set up for wheelchairs when he moved in. Salinas has been there since getting out of prison in Chino, where he was serving time on a robbery conviction after he was paralyzed. Sometimes he still sees his homies -- but he left the Clara Street gang in Cudahy, and he doesn't hang out anymore.

“I'll get invited to the fights,” he said, “but I know what happens afterward, so I just disappear.” Some nights, he goes out to dance clubs, to Peppers or Baby Dolls, but doesn't have a steady girlfriend.

“There's just too much stress right now,” he said. “My life's just too tough. I want to be able to give her stuff and be there for her.”

Like most paraplegics, Salinas was severely depressed after the shooting.

But that is diminishing.

“I just told myself that I'm not as bad as the other people there,” he said. “The hospital showed me that it could have been worse.”

He could have had flap sores like some of Rancho's bedridden quadriplegics -- bedsores that eat flesh away to the bone. In such cases, surgeons have to make skin grafts, a procedure that can run up to $60,000 or $70,000.

Even quadriplegics who can get around -- in breath- or mouth-operated motorized wheelchairs -- are sick more often than paraplegics. Health is a daily battle. Like Salinas, they cope with frequent bladder infections. They often have fevers and hot flashes and dizziness, all from simple exposure to even the mild weather.

Among Rancho patients, though, talk about such difficulties is secondary to a strong focus on simply getting better. Progress is sometimes slow, but they all cling to the success stories.

“Patty ( Madison, 19), one of our girls, was shot, and she was paralyzed for a couple of months,” said Fidel Valenzuela, coordinator for Rancho's Teens on Target antigang support group. “She's walking now, but she's still supposed to use her ankle braces.”

Someday, Salinas hopes to walk, too, of course, and he also hopes to be able to overcome his nine years as a gangbanger.

“That's all I was, was a mad dog,” Salinas said. “I'd kick in the door and shoot everybody. I'd take their car, their money, their clothes, their shoes.”

There's a chance he could someday walk with the support of leg braces and a walker. That would most likely be the extent of his recovery. But he's motivated about turning his life around. And realistic about the extra effort that will take.

“For every step you take,” he said, “I'm pushing like mad.”