A gunshot wound shattered her rib and barely missed a major artery and now the Perry County woman police say was the victim of a domestic dispute talks about her ordeal.

Tamela Brashear says her husband's eyes never left her face from the time he reached for his gun, until she heard it go off.

"Then I felt the burning pain," Brashear said. "I asked him three times before I really realized that I was bleeding."

She says she watched in disbelief as he turned the gun on himself.

"I never in my wildest imagination thought he'd ever do that," she said.

Brashear says Sam was never violent before and she believes stress from work made him snap that night.

"It was just a verbal disagreement over linen spray," Brashear said.

She laughs to soften the memory that haunts her and she's calm because she believes from the moment she fell to the floor, a guardian angel was by her side.

"I pretty well was determined I wasn't going anywhere," she said.

She says she worried more about Sam and told paramedics to stop their work on her so she could go to her bleeding husband, and tell him she forgave him. We asked her why.

"Follow your heart. That's what my heart said. You know, I loved him, still do love him. I couldn't press charges," Brashear said.

She says now she's getting her own place, but is still unsure about a separation.

"As long as I can forgive, I can move on," she said.

It is the best way Tamela Brashear knows how to recover from her wounds, inside and out.

Sam Brashear is still in rehabilitation.

Tamela says he has no memory of what happened.

The Commonwealth's Attorney could still present the case to a grand jury, but she's waiting to see the full police report before making a decision.