ALTHOUGH Nicole Webb — the former exotic dancer, who was shot and paralysed by police last September — is seeking $93 million for compensation for her injury, deep down she knows no amount of money can compensate for her loss of freedom.

“… that police man has taken half my life away from me. Half of my body has no use to me and no claim or amount of money can make up for that,” Webb told the Observer last week, while at home in Linstead, St Catherine, where she relocated from Kingston after the shooting.

“They have given me $1 million interim payment. I got that last week but I am really hoping that it does not take too long for them to decide on the rest,” she added, taking a break from having her hair braided to do the interview.

She was grateful for the interim payment, she said, as it would help with some of her medical expenses such as rehabilitation and living expenses for her three children.

Her first instinct had been to use some of the interim payment to buy a wheelchair to replace the malfunctioning one that she had.

“This is my first wheelchair,” said Webb, who explained that she had gained a lot of weight since the accident last September. “My cousin took off the wheels off the second one and put on this because the second one broke. It could not bear my weight.”

She had identified a replacement wheelchair that cost $33,000, she said. Since then, the Mustard Seed Community decided to give her one.

Webb was shot by the police while on her way home from work in the early morning hours of September 4, 2002.

The police tried to pull over the car that was taking her and her co-workers home but the driver failed to stop, she said, and the cop opened fire. She was hit, the bullet lodging in her spine. Doctors have said that it cannot be removed. She is paralysed from the waist down and has been in therapy at the Mona Rehabilitation Centre in St Andrew since then.

“I go to therapy on a Tuesday and a Thursday. I have learnt to transfer and bathe myself now. I have gotten used to being in the wheelchair now,” she said. “I have been lifting weights during therapy to strengthen my upper body ….But I still hope that eventually I will get out of the wheelchair.”

Her adjustment, she said, has not been easy, as she can no longer do domestic chores like cook, clean and wash.

“My family has been very supportive and they are the ones that cook and so on. Most of my independence has gone and I can no longer be a mother to my children the way I want to,” she said.

The shooting has split up her family, as two of her three children no longer live with her.

“The baby, Brittney, has gone to Spanish Town to live with her father’s family. Whenever I can get a drive I go and look for her. The three year-old, Shamoya, lives with me — her father is in jail; and the eldest, Pedrine, has gone to England,” she said.

The past year has been a difficult one, Nicole said, because she has had to rely on the help of overseas relatives to cope.

“When I run out of my (adult) diapers and so on I have to call my relatives abroad. They helped to support me,” she said.

Webb has little control over her bodily functions. During the interview when she urinated on the floor of the small concrete house where she lives with her cousins, one of them quickly came forward to clean up.

With the interim payment, she said, she will have some measure of financial independence — and be able to clear old debts.

“When I had to go to therapy before, I used to take a taxi to my lawyer’s office and he would pay them for me but I can deal with that now,” she said. “I can also take care of the school fees I owe for Shamoya. The school has been very understanding so far.”

A typical day for her now involves listening to music and watching television but in the future she hopes to do some courses in computing.

“They offer computer classes at a high school up the road and I am thinking of doing that,” said Webb, who used to be a sales clerk before she turned to exotic dancing.

For the moment though, Webb and her lawyer, Earle Delisser, are waiting for the Attorney General’s office to respond to their claim.

“I arrived at the $93 million using a similar case that happened in 1994,” said Delisser. “Someone who received similar injuries was awarded $10 million by the court at that time.”

He added: “I applied the Consumer Price Index to that and came up with this figure — which I submitted to the Attorney General’s office. They have that case as a guide so we will wait to see whether they agree to the figure or not.”

In the meantime the police officer who allegedly shot Webb, Inspector Garfield Edwards, has been charged with wounding with intent. He has since been released on bail and is expected to attend a preliminary hearing on October 16.