‘Not going to live in fear.’ Kiln Navy vet speaks out after nearly dying on his own street
As the truck came down the long dirt driveway, 5-year-old Jackson Fletcher saw the figure of a man in the passenger seat, and his face lit up. A man he hadn’t seen in 47 days.
“Daddy, daddy, daddy,” Jackson screamed as Brett Fletcher got out of the vehicle.
But the kindergartner’s father, a Navy veteran, was almost unrecognizable. He was 70 pounds lighter, had a long gray beard, and needed help walking.
Fletcher, 45, spent nearly a month in intensive care, 20 of those days on life support, at Forrest General Hospital in Hattiesburg. He was shot close-range by a shotgun one inch below his heart on March 30.
Fletcher’s neighbor, Mark Dempsey Hoda, is charged with attempted murder and felon in possession of a firearm. The 57-year-old is in the Hancock County jail on a $510,000 bond. He waived a preliminary hearing and the case has been bound over to the grand jury, who will decide if there’s enough evidence to formally charge him for trial.
“I spent 21 years in and out of war zones ... I come out unscathed. And then, end up getting shot in your own backyard,” Brett Fletcher said from his home in Kiln. “Something to think about.”
It’s been two months since Brett Fletcher was found lying the street, clinging to life and waiting for a medical helicopter. Two months since Amy Fletcher was terrified that her husband would die. But Brett Fletcher survived and is back home, and his family is choosing to focus on recovery over fear who lives a few houses down.
The shooting and recovery
On the day of the shooting, the Fletchers were at the end of their dead-end street visiting with friends who were building a new home. Brett Fletcher said he drove his ATV down the street to his home to get a tarp.
On the way back to the neighbors home, Fletcher said Dempsey and some relatives had blocked the road so he couldn’t get through.
Hoda lives in between the Fletchers and their friends building a new home.
Fletcher would not comment on what happened next because a grand jury investigation is pending, but he said he survived the close-range shooting because of his military instinct.
Lying on the road with a bullet near his chest, Fletcher was able to call 911 and tell police what happened to him before he was flown to the hospital.
As he struggled for air, Brett Fletcher said he could hear the shooter laughing from his truck. But he held on for 30 minutes between the call and the helicopter landing, Amy Fletcher said.
“It’s a survival mode,” Brett Fletcher said. “You can’t just lay there like a beaten puppy dog. You got to do something.”
Brett said he doesn’t remember much between the moment he received medicine for the pain in the helicopter through May when he was taken off life support. During his time in the hospital, Amy Fletcher and family could not visit Brett because of the coronavirus pandemic.
For weeks while Brett Fletcher was sedated, he said it was “like a physchedellic dream that played over and over and over.”
Now, he’s recovering at home with the help of his wife. The shooting left him with a hole one-half inch deep on the side of his body near his chest. His left side is filled with pellets from the shotgun bullet exploding inside of body. He has holes in his stomach and diaphragm, and the bullet clipped his pancreas. Much of Fletcher’s intestines had to be removed, as well as his spleen.
There’s also a scar on that leads from the sternum to the belt line. In the hospital, he developed a blood clot in his lung that has to be treated for 6 months, and he has to temporarily wear a colostomy bag. His toes are also black.
Brett Fletcher refuses to dwell on his physical appearance, though. He calls his bullet hole “Lilo” and his long scar “Stitch.”
“I have to live with it, so let’s enjoy it,” he said. “It’s a minor price to pay to be alive. It was worth it.”
Kiln family ‘not going to live in fear’
Fletcher has been home for about 3 weeks and is adjusting to a new life.
Therapists come to his home in the Kiln to help his body recover. Brett Fletcher said he’s not used to “being waited on hand and foot” but is grateful for his wife, who helps him do everyday tasks like getting out of bed, bending down and changing his clothes.
Brett Fletcher and his son used to spend as much time as possible together outside, exploring their land or riding in the golf cart. Now, they watch “Live PD” and children’s shows on the couch together.
Amy Fletcher told the Sun Herald in April that she would never turn right down her driveway again after the shooting, but she’s conquered her fear.
“I just got angry,” she said. The Fletchers had never interacted with their neighbors before the shooting.
“I had to get over this fear of what was down there.”
The Fletchers have no plans of leaving or moving. While it hurts every time they look down their street, they said that won’t stop them from moving on.
“I’m not going to live in fear,” Brett Feltcher said. “Evil is everywhere.”
Jackson still doesn’t know what really happened, because Amy and Brett Fletcher don’t want him to be scared inside of his own home, Amy Fletcher said, but they feel like it’s time to tell him what happened.
“Before he goes back to school, we’re going to have to talk to him about it,” Amy Fletcher said.
Sun Herald reporter Anita Lee contributed to this report.
This story was originally published June 9, 2020 at 12:31 PM.
