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CHARLOTTE, N.C. -- She watched robbers shoot her coworker and then turn the gun on her. Now, the survivor is talking about her struggle to walk again.

Two gunmen robbed the Country Hearth Inn in May, shooting Majula Patel twice. On Wednesday, she talked for the first time about the ordeal, speaking exclusively to NewsChannel 36.

Patel remembers most of what happened that night, but not all. She says she is in intense pain that keeps her up most nights.

"There's a bullet behind her back that caused the paralyzed," said her son, Vikas Patel.

"Put the bullet there and he said, 'Don't move,' and boom, boom, boom," Majula Patel described.

Vikas Patel son says his mom pulled her own gun in self-defense but she didn't have a chance to shoot. Majula doesn't remember.

She was paralyzed after the shooting. Her coworker, Larry Broughton, died right next to her.

"I cry in my heart," she said. "My life is messed up."

With a bullet still lodged in her spinal cord, doctors aren't sure she'll ever walk again. However, she didn't have any feeling from the waist down when this first happened in May. Now, she has feeling in her abdomen and left leg.

"She's a fighter. Since her left leg is moving, we have hope," Vikas said.

Patel says she has a goal.

"I stand up," she said.

"She wants to see herself stand up," her son said.

Police still do not have any suspects in the case. A $12,000 reward is being offered for information that leads to an arrest.

Anyone with information should call CrimeStoppers at 704-334-1600.