By JESSICA SIEFF
Niles Daily Star

Days after Kathy Myers put a gun to her shoulder and pulled the trigger, shooting herself with the hope that she would finally receive medical care for a painful pre-existing condition, the 41-year-old Niles woman is in additional pain and facing the possibility of criminal charges.

“Never did I expect the news or the TV or anything to be interested in anything like this,” she said Monday.

Myers, who could face charges of reckless discharge of a firearm should the Berrien County Prosecutor’s office choose to prosecute the case, said she’s not worried about that possibility.

“No, I don’t really think they’re going to file charges against me,” she said. “The officer was pretty understanding…”

Niles City Police were dispatched to Myers’ home in the 1500 block of Michigan Street Thursday around 4 p.m. after a phone call was placed to 911 reporting someone had been shot at the residence.

Myers had shot herself.

Home and “in a lot of pain today,” Myers said everything started months ago when she was trying to keep her 86-pound dog from chasing after two Chihuahuas. With her hand on the collar, she was swung around with such force that the dog “spun me all the way around,” and her shoulder “popped in three places.”

Doctors were originally unable to give an exact diagnosis for the damage done to her shoulder, Myers claims.

Following a visit to the hospital at the time, she said the doctor she met with “never looked at my arm to see how swollen it was or the discoloration in it.”

Myers had recently moved back to the Niles area after a short move to Clinton, Ind., and said a lack of valid Michigan identification and no insurance made matters worse.

As she tried to work through the requirements needed by clinics, she said she was told “it’s going to be forever until we can see you.”

Meanwhile, Myers said the pain she experienced from the damage to her shoulder was almost unbearable and she often passed out and screamed out loud.

After taking a job with a local recycling company hoping to stay on as long as it took to get insured, she found the work too labor intensive to continue Thursday. She couldn’t go to work due to the pain, Myers said, and she was fired.

Later that afternoon, when she pressed the gun to her shoulder, she said, “I was trying to speed up the process.

“The pain had just been so bad,” she said. “I was going to take a damn chainsaw to it. Even with your arm in a sling and you’re right-handed, you go to do the slightest thing,” and the pain will “bring you to your knees.”

“God was looking out for me,” she said. She’d planned to pull the trigger when a friend arrived at her home so she would have transportation to the hospital. Believing that friend had arrived, she pulled the trigger too soon.

“I walked upstairs and told my mother-in-law to call 911,” then she went outside and smoked a cigarette, Myers said.

She noted Niles police responded “quite quickly.”

Myers said her previous work experience was also working against her.

Having worked in hazardous waste removal, she said her chances of developing diseases in the future leaves her in a situation where “it’s almost like I’m uninsurable.”

Myers missed the bone in her shoulder, having aimed for the rotator cuff, and is now in more pain and no more likely to get help in the future.

“So I did it all for nothing,” she said.

Asked if she felt the situation had highlighted the plight of many uninsured, Myers said yes, and said her mother-in-law has also had trouble getting medical care after she was dropped from Medicare.

Myers said she has mixed feelings on the outcome of the situation.

“Yes and no,” she said when asked if she regrets shooting herself. “Yes more than no. I regret that I missed.”

Myers does not know what she will do next.

“I don’t know,” Myers said. “I’ll figure something out. I’m not trying to fraud no insurance company or anything. Out of all this I was really hoping, if anything, some doctor out there or someone, some clinic would say, ‘hey, we’ll help her out.’

“Those who don’t have insurance still deserve help,” Myers said.