SOUTH BEND— Irise Hendrix thanks God for her life — and prays each day for the man accused of nearly taking it.

“I been praying for Henry Jones,” she said, “because anyone that can do something this horrible and have no remorse, he really needs prayers.”

Henry Jones Jr., of South Bend, was charged Tuesday with one count of aggravated battery and two counts of criminal recklessness in connection with the shooting of Hendrix July 4 in the parking lot of the Charles Black Youth Center.

Hendrix and her daughter, Sheaquita Tobar, who was with her mother when she was shot, had been hopeful the 45-year-old Jones would be charged with attempted murder.

“I’m a little disappointed they dropped it from attempted murder to aggravated assault,” Hendrix told The Tribune Tuesday from her home, where the 37-year-old has been recuperating the past week and a half since her release from the hospital. “I almost died.”

Hendrix has a long scar down the center of her stomach, and another one across the bottom of it where doctors cut her open to perform major stomach surgery. A third scar on the left side of her abdomen marks the spot where the bullet entered.

She recalls pleading with doctors to save her life as they rolled her into the operating room at Memorial Hospital the night of the shooting.

“I said I had eight children and I just had a grandbaby,” she said. “I kept telling them I couldn’t die there. My father died there 37 years ago of a gunshot wound, and I couldn’t die there.”

As a reminder of how close to death she came, Hendrix keeps with her the red tag she found attached to her foot when she woke from surgery — the kind used to identify the dead.

Even her doctors thought she wouldn’t make it.

‘You better not shoot’

It was about 10:30 p.m. July 4 when Hendrix decided to leave LaSalle Park. She and two of her daughters had arrived at the park on the city’s west side about a half hour earlier to watch fireworks, and several fights had broken out, including one over money between her nephew, 18-year-old Algerine Henderson, and another man later identified as Jones.

“I don’t know what was going on between him and my nephew,” Hendrix said, “but other fights had broke out and I decided we were going to leave.”

As she exited the parking lot at the Charles Black Center, 3419 W. Washington St., a shirtless man who looked like Jones walked by her GMC Safari and said something about not being punked. She yelled for Henderson and his mother, who were walking back toward the park, but neither one heard her. Before she could do anything, the man struck Henderson in the head with a bottle and began beating him.

“My mom said hold on,” said Tobar, who was eight months pregnant at the time and sitting in the front seat. “And then my mom drove to the side of (the man) and said, ‘You stop that!’”

The man, now holding a gun, was apparently distracted by the vehicle. He fired a shot that grazed Henderson’s head, and then turned his attention to Hendrix.

“... He pulled back and looked at me for maybe five seconds at most,” Hendrix said, “and then he slammed his hands on my van and walked backward ... and that’s when I seen the gun.”

“I seen the gun, and she seen the gun,” said Tobar. “And I said, ‘Oh my God, don’t shoot!’ and she said, ‘You better not shoot!’”

The man shot twice — the first bullet striking the van’s windshield, the second piercing the driver’s side door and then Henrdrix’s abdomen, tearing through her sigmoid colon, small bowel and iliac artery.

In the commotion, Tobar exited the vehicle and hid behind it; her 17-year-old sister, who had been in the back seat, grabbed her 3-week-old child and ran across the parking lot.

“I looked over and both my daughters were gone,” Hendrix said. “I started yelling for my sister, but no one responded, so I crawled into the passenger seat.”

Through the open passenger door, she saw her 17-year-old daughter on the other side of the parking lot, her child in her arms. She called for her. “No,” her daughter said, “I’m not coming back over there, they shot you.”

Crawling farther across the seat, she looked down at the pavement. Tobar was lying there crying. She began to feel sleepy.

“My mom said, ‘I think I’ve been shot,’” Tobar recalled. “‘If we don’t go now, I’m gonna die.’”

Tobar composed herself and climbed into the driver’s seat. She put her hand upon her mother’s and together they applied pressure to the wound to stanch the bleeding. As she raced down Lincoln Way toward Memorial Hospital at 95 mph, other motorists attempted to race her as she ran stoplight after stoplight.

“She was speeding — speeding like crazy,” Hendrix said. “And she kept saying, ‘Mom, keep talking to me.’ And I kept saying, ‘Drive faster.’”

At one point, Hendrix asked her daughter if she was bleeding. “Mom, you’re bleeding everywhere,” she said.

At the hospital, the two argued about where to park. Tobar parked at the ambulance entrance. She pounded on the doors. “My mom’s been shot,” she yelled.

As the doctor began to perform surgery, he told Hendrix she would feel the knife — they couldn’t wait for the anesthetic to take effect. “They restrained me,” Hendrix said, “and I felt them cut me.”

‘I don’t want to rush’

Hendrix was released from the hospital on Saturday, July 12. By Sunday, she was back in, having torn two staples from walking too much.

She misses her job at Sanctuary at Holy Cross in South Bend, where she works in the laundry. And she misses being a typical mother to her eight children. But she’s learned to be patient.

“I’m eager to get back to normal life, but I don’t want to rush,” she said.

On a typical day, Hendrix’s wounds are dressed in the morning by Tobar, her “lifesaver,” and in the evening by a visiting nurse. Her mother helps her bathe, and her other children adjust her pillows and fetch water for her.

Through her faith in God, her heart is healing as well. The first step was forgiving the suspect.

“When I first came out (of surgery) and realized what state I was in, that I couldn’t move my body or go to the restroom, I was very angry and confused,” she said. “I was upset because I didn’t know the man.

“But as time went on, I put my trust in God,” she said. “God is gonna deal with it.”

Staff writer Erin Blasko: eblasko@sbtinfo.com