The Walking Wounded

A sobering encounter with lives transformed by gun violence and an urgent call to build more comprehensive systems of care for wounded people.

Gun violence is a plague in the United States; even survivors experience suffering that wreaks havoc on their lives and our communities. Although excellent emergency trauma care means that 80 percent of shooting victims do not die from their injuries, surviving is only the first step. Most survivors then find themselves trapped in health care and judicial systems that only amplify their pain, trauma, and uncertainty.

In The Walking Wounded, Jooyoung Lee invites readers into the hospitals, courtrooms, and homes where gunshot victims struggle to rebuild their lives. Drawing from years of fieldwork in Philadelphia, Lee shows how victims’ injuries fester into new problems over time in the absence of meaningful follow-up care. Attempting routine tasks with a wounded body reminds survivors that they are no longer who they used to be—both physically and socially. Lee shows how trauma ricochets through victims’ worlds as their injuries also affect their family and friends. To make matters worse, Lee argues, existing government safety nets place victims into ever more precarious circumstances that compound their suffering.

In the face of health care and judicial systems that fail wounded people, Lee urges a sensible and sensitive rehabilitative process aimed at equipping the walking wounded with ongoing care that aspires for more than mere survival: the regaining of independent lives.