Danielle Husband
With scars on both her face and psyche, a Houston woman injured in the Charlottesville riots in August of this year recently returned home to heal.
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Despite her long road to recovery, Natalie Romero, 20, said she won’t back down from fighting for what’s right.
RELATED: Bellaire High School graduate among those injured in Charlottesville
“Everyday I have to look at the scar on my face,” Romero said in an interview with KHOU. “And I have to feel my lips and the stitches in my lip. I am afraid of the revving of a car. The engine. It’s this new normal.”
#Khou11 #EXCLUSIVE Natalie Romero was hit by a car during a white nationalist rally in Charlottesville in August. The 20YO is back in #HOU. A look at her recovery at 6pm pic.twitter.com/U8LfadPFgi
— Melissa Correa (@KHOUmelissa) November 9, 2017
A Bellaire High School graduate, Romero reportedly received a full scholarship to attend the University of Virginia, where she decided to join counter-protesters to voice her opposition to the white nationalists marching on her campus.
“In real life, I saw Swastikas,” Romero said. “I saw men saluting, like Nazis. I saw men with hammers. I saw all these things that in my life I thought that was over.”
During the protest, Romero and 19 others in the crowd suffered injuries after being struck by a car driven by a white nationalist supporter.
The daughter of Columbian immigrants, Romero said she is a staunch supporter of equality.
RELATED: Following Charlottesville, Houston comes to a crossroads on monuments and marches
While recovering from a skull fracture and other facial injuries, Romero said she received an outpouring of love in the form of care packages, donations, visits and a new therapy dog named Luna.
She is reportedly facing a long road to fully healing, but said being home in Houston helps:
“I definitely needed this. I needed to come home.”
