Victim working toward recovery

Austin Askins left Boise. Now he’s working on leaving behind the crime that shattered his mouth and upended his first week of college.

The 19-year-old Central Valley High School graduate is back home in Liberty Lake with his parents, but memories of the day a stranger shot him and two other Northwest Lineman College students outside a party still haunt his dreams, and he faces multiple surgeries to fix damage to his tongue and teeth.

Askins feels the bullet lodged in his neck, too close to his spinal cord to be safely removed.

Still, he said he’s grateful for support from family, friends and strangers and thankful he will never again have to drink a hospital protein shake.

Askins spent two weeks in the hospital recovering from his wounds. Future surgeries will flatten the scar tissue on his tongue and replace shattered teeth.

The emotional wounds are still healing.

“I don’t have a lot of pain now. It’s more anxiety, worry about stuff. It’s hard to sleep sometimes,” he said. “You hear noise outside …”

“He just kind of goes back to the scene,” said Askins’ mother, Wendy Askins.

Askins and others were outside a Boise home at a student party on Sept. 3 when they chatted with a stranger about their vehicles and other innocuous subjects. The man walked away after shaking Askins’ hand, only to return a few minutes later to shoot three young men and rob them.

“I had a dollar and my debit card,” Askins said.

Askins wasn’t aware of how serious his injuries were at the time. After EMTs put him into an ambulance, he heard girls crying and screaming outside and went out to reassure them before the EMTs told him to lie back down.

One of the men shot that night is still in the intensive care unit at a Boise hospital and could face some paralysis.

Askins might not have survived if it hadn’t been for a previous hockey injury that claimed his two front teeth. The titanium replacements deflected the bullet away from his brain.

“I’m looking for a titanium car,” joked Austin’s dad, Scott Askins.

Boise police have received many leads in the case but don’t have a solid suspect, said police spokeswoman Lynn Hightower.

“It’s still very much under investigation,” Hightower said. “This was a really high profile crime. It was very violent and very vicious.”

Two bracelets remind Askins of what it will take to heal.

A blue rubber bracelet on one wrist says, “Strength.” A new “Live Strong” bracelet is on the other wrist. His father bought it to replace the one hospital staff cut off Askins.

He’s been back to visit teachers and students at Central Valley High School.

“I tell myself I’m at home. I’m safe. Nobody’s going to do anything here,” Askins said.

In January he’ll head back to Boise to complete his training to become an electrical lineman, something he says doesn’t worry him.

“Someday they’ll find him. Either they will or I will,” he said of his attacker.

Askins is certain he would recognize the man if he ran into him again.

He sees him every night.