Data shows<\/a> that in Allegheny County alone last year, 12 people died from intimate partner homicides.<\/p>\nThat accounted for about 11% of all the county’s homicide victims, and that figure is slightly up from 2023.<\/p>\n
The hug that domestic violence survivor Jen Pardini received on Wednesday is one of gladness and gratitude.<\/p>\n
“Dr. Leonardo saved me. She saved my life,” Pardini, 28, said.<\/p>\n
She is not embellishing that statement. Pardini said her ex-boyfriend, with whom she had been dating for about two and a half years, brutally attacked her with a hammer. She said he kicked her, too.<\/p>\n
All of it shattered her skull, knocked out multiple teeth, and left her with permanent eye damage.<\/p>\n
“She was beaten so badly that she actually had [brain matter] coming out of her skull,” said Dr. Jody Leonardo, a neurosurgeon at AHN who performed the surgeries Pardini needed.<\/p>\n
People like Leonardo see a lot, but this remains fresh in her mind.<\/p>\n
“That was a day here that many people who were working that day will never forget,” she said.<\/p>\n
Pardini now has some fake teeth. She says she’s having another surgery to match her eye height, but she says she’s in much better spirits.<\/p>\n
“I can talk, I can walk, the other day I went for a bike ride,” she said.<\/p>\n
Now, during this Domestic Violence Awareness Month, Pardini is sharing her story.<\/p>\n
“I’ve done a lot over the past few weeks,” she said. “I spoke with a domestic violence organization.”<\/p>\n
Pardini is hoping that what she went through can serve as a resource.<\/p>\n
“I’m just starting out, but I want to every year do more and more in order to help,” she said.<\/p>\n
Kristin Lazzara, the director of strategic operations at AHN’s Center for Inclusion Health, said part of AHN’s approach includes normalizing the conversation.<\/p>\n
That means training doctors, nurses, and staff members to recognize signs of domestic violence.<\/p>\n
Lazzara encourages people who may be experiencing domestic violence to talk to their health care provider, their doctor, or their nurse.<\/p>\n
She said the signs are not always visible, that there is a whole spectrum of unhealthy relationships and domestic violence.<\/p>\n
“They might have emotional or financial abuse,” Lazzara said. “They might not be able to leave their house when they want to or use their credit card.”<\/p>\n
Lazzara said there are four domestic violence organizations in Allegheny County alone, and 57 across the state.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"October is Domestic Violence Awareness Month. It’s something that can happen in urban, rural, and suburban communities. Data…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":11749,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[894,5835,73,75,74],"class_list":["post-11748","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-pittsburgh","tag-allegheny-county","tag-domestic-violence","tag-pittsburgh","tag-pittsburgh-headlines","tag-pittsburgh-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11748","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11748"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11748\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11749"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11748"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11748"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11748"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}