Car­ol Quash

WPC Quian­na Ma­habir has every rea­son to be grate­ful. A year ago her life hung pre­car­i­ous­ly in the bal­ance af­ter she was shot three times just out­side her Ca­roni home on the morn­ing of Oc­to­ber 22, 2024–an ex­pe­ri­ence of which she has no mem­o­ry but has the phys­i­cal and emo­tion­al scars to prove it.

Based on what she was lat­er told, she had dri­ven from the Pi­ar­co In­ter­na­tion­al Air­port to her home when ban­dits tried to rob her of her car. When she re­fused to let them have it, she was shot in her head and her hand. “There’s a mark on my bust area where the third bul­let passed through my chest and was lodged in my stom­ach,” she told WE. “I had to do surgery to re­move that bul­let.”

Her rec­ol­lec­tion of that day was on­ly up to the time she got to the air­port af­ter re­turn­ing home from a trip to New Jer­sey and the Ba­hamas, where she and oth­er mem­bers of the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Band had gone to per­form.

“It’s like God knows what he al­lows to hap­pen and what he al­lows us to re­mem­ber. The last thing I re­mem­ber is reach­ing to the air­port. I don’t re­mem­ber any­thing af­ter that.”

Ma­habir was tak­en to the Er­ic Williams Med­ical Sci­ences Com­plex, where she re­mained in a co­ma for days and was ward­ed for weeks.

As a long-stand­ing mem­ber of The Apos­tles’ Min­istries in Long­denville, Ch­agua­nas, her faith has al­ways played a ma­jor role in every­thing she does, so trust­ing in God to get her through the har­row­ing ex­pe­ri­ence was a no-brain­er. But, she ad­mit­ted, inas­much as she trust­ed Him even though she couldn’t un­der­stand why He had al­lowed this to hap­pen to her, there were mo­ments when that faith wa­vered.

“We all have weak mo­ments, right? When I came out of the co­ma and was dis­charged from the hos­pi­tal, I re­mem­ber pinch­ing my­self. And I was like, ‘This is a dream. What did I do to de­serve this? I keep to my­self; I didn’t do any­body any­thing. Why?’”

But she said she was re­mind­ed of the bib­li­cal sto­ry of Job, who had lost every­thing be­cause God gave the en­e­my per­mis­sion to test Job.

“But he (Job) was re­stored dou­ble por­tion, so dur­ing this process, I have re­al­ly held on to God’s love for us. There’s so much hate in this world, but I re­al­ly be­lieve we have to share God’s love and His for­give­ness.

“Even the per­sons that did this to me, who I don’t even know, I pray for them. I re­mem­ber Matthew 5:44, and I pray for their souls, be­cause their souls are im­por­tant too.”

Ma­habir said the ex­pe­ri­ence has tak­en quite a toll on her in every way, and she has made a de­ci­sion to try to de­vel­op her­self holis­ti­cal­ly–nour­ish­ing her­self men­tal­ly, spir­i­tu­al­ly, emo­tion­al­ly, psy­cho­log­i­cal­ly and phys­i­cal­ly.

“In re­al­i­ty, every­body is go­ing through some­thing. So dur­ing this process, I’ve been re­mind­ing my­self to re­al­ly tru­ly let go and let God and ask for his guid­ance. Be­cause some­times we see suf­fer­ing as a bad thing. But suf­fer­ing re­al­ly hap­pens be­fore strength. If you’re go­ing to the gym, for ex­am­ple, and you’re lift­ing weights, your body will go through some dread pain, but the end re­sult is the de­vel­op­ment of mus­cles, right?”

She said she con­stant­ly re­minds her­self that her pain is not pun­ish­ment but prepa­ra­tion for her next sea­son.

Al­though she still has some way to go in the heal­ing process, Ma­habir re­turned to work in April last year, six months af­ter the shoot­ing, and she has al­so re­turned to play­ing her beloved drum kit. And, in time, she will re­sume teach­ing at her mu­sic school, Sui Gener­is Sound Drum­ming Acad­e­my. She said, based on the in­juries she sus­tained, her doc­tors were sur­prised at how fast she has been heal­ing and get­ting back to her life.

“I re­mem­ber the doc­tors ask­ing my fam­i­ly, ‘Did she have to re­learn to walk? Did she have to re­learn to talk? Did she have to re­learn to dri­ve? Did she have to re­learn to play the drums?’ I didn’t. It took some time, but I re­mem­bered how to do every­thing.”

And just as her faith saw her through, Ma­habir be­lieves the love and sup­port of her fam­i­ly and friends has sped up the heal­ing process.

“They did every­thing for me,” in­clud­ing deal­ing with me­dia calls.

“My aunt, WPC Elahie, es­pe­cial­ly was very, very pro­tec­tive. I call her ‘Man­age­ment’,” Ma­habir said, laugh­ing un­con­trol­lably.

She said she will al­ways be grate­ful to those whom God placed to as­sist, in­clud­ing strangers who didn’t know her but of­fered up prayers on her be­half. And as part of her new-year plan, she has every in­ten­tion of pay­ing that sup­port for­ward.

“In what­ev­er way I can, I re­al­ly just want to share God’s love and keep grow­ing and de­vel­op­ing, learn­ing … I just want to grow and de­vel­op and reach peo­ple in what­ev­er way the Lord al­lows me.”