FAYETTE COUNTY, Texas — It's been one year since Fayette County deputy C.J. Lehmann was shot in the face.
After a year of ups and downs, Lehmann spoke with KVUE about his journey that was started from a tragedy he'll never forget.
Lehman and his wife, Sonya, remember the day.
"Nov. 1 of 2018, which is a year ago ... they chased him to the Carter Hotel, to his hotel room there," Lehmann said.
"I'm trying to get a hold of [C.J.] and call him repeatedly," Sonya Lehmann said.
Deputy Lehmann was responding to a warrant because a man – later identified as Shazizz Mateen – failed to register as a sex offender. Mateen was hiding in the Carter Motel off of Highway 71.
"Maybe 10 to 15 seconds after opening the door is when I got hit," Lehmann said. "I never seen the barrel come out, never saw anything."
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The shooting left Deputy Lehmann completely blind and, for the last year, dealing with life in a different way.
"Very, very hard at first because I'm very do-it-yourselfer," Lehmann said. "Most of it I think is just because I can't see. I can't go out there and do my job ... because it's what I love to do."
"He's still the same person," said Lehmann's wife. "He might be blind, but he can still have an attitude. He can still start fights. He can still do all that stuff. He's the same person."
Things have changed in the Lehmann's marriage since the shooting, but it's all an adjustment.
"Yeah, I tot to pick up the pace a little bit more and do a little bit more ... but, so? That's why I married him," Sonya said.
His right eye is dead and the left was removed.
"It's not the whole eye, just the shell," Lehmann said.
Other than that, it's only scars that remain – and the memory of what happened a year ago, which he will never forget.
"I knew I got shot. I heard the blast, the smell, the gun powder," Lehmann said. "The hardest thing is just, it's not really for me, but for my family and stuff. That's the only thing I have issues with."
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