PUTNAM COUNTY, Fla. – A woman who was critically injured in a road rage shooting in Putnam County is out of the hospital and spoke with News4JAX about the life-altering ordeal.
Ashlie Cochran, who reached out to News4JAX through our Help Center, said she was on Highway 17 near the Pomona Park Dollar General store on May 31 when she noticed another driver, who police identified as 56-year-old Keith Shaulis, tailgating her.
“I thought when I pulled over to let him pass, I was doing the right thing. I never dreamed he would pull up and shoot me,” Cochran said.
She said the tailgating lasted until she tried to turn off the highway onto Lake Como Drive.
“I was making a right turn, and he just came close up on me and almost hit meb then turned before I could. So, I had to wait for him to finish so I could turn,” Cochran said.
Cochran said when both cars were on Lake Como Drive, Shaulis started driving slowly in front of her, tapping his brakes.
“I felt like he was trying to cause an incident and escalate the problem,” she said.
Cochran eventually passed Shaulis, but he started chasing behind her, she said.
So, she, her husband, and their 9-year-old son pulled off the road. Cochran said the driver pulled up next to her SUV as she opened her door.
“By the time I spun my legs and my face, all I saw was the barrel of the gun. I had one foot on the ground; my door was open,” she said.
She said she never had the chance to say anything before the driver started shooting.
“At that time, my husband had exited the passenger door and had to hit the ground because he shot a bullet in his direction also. He was able to lay on the ground and see the first three letters of his license plate” Cochran said.
A gunshot wound to the stomach left Cochran critically injured. She was airlifted to a hospital where doctors performed an emergency surgery to remove sections of her small intestines that the bullet damaged.
The same bullet traveled to her pelvic bone where it remains and caused nerve damage to her leg.
“I can only feel 50% of my leg, so it’s hard for me to walk,” she said. “When I left in the ambulance and was pulling away from my husband and my son, I thought that was the last time I was going to see them.”
Her son was not hit because he hid on the floor as the shots rang out, Cochran said. And her husband was uninjured.
“Somehow the bullets missed him,” she said.
According to his arrest report, Shaulis hid his car at a friend’s house in Crescent City. When detectives located and searched the car, they said they found spent shell casings and damage consistent with firing a gun from inside a vehicle.
News4JAX Crime and Safety Analyst Tom Hackney called this incident an extreme case of road rage.
“It’s scary to think what could have happened. It’s scary to think what did happen, and it’s scary to think this is the kind of people that sometimes occupy the same roadway that we do,” Hackney said.
Aggressive driving accounts for 66% of traffic fatalities. And 37% of aggressive driving involves the use of a firearm, according to data from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.
Shaulis remains in jail without bond on two counts of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon, aggravated battery and illegal use of a firearm.
Hackney said prosecutors are likely evaluating the case to see if the charges should be upgraded to attempted murder.
“When you hear everything that’s been outlined and really happened that day, you have to scratch your head a little bit because it does seem like an attempted murder,” Hackney said. “It certainly was an attempted murder on her life. This lady is now going to be forever impacted by what happened that day.”
Cochran’s family started a GoFundMe to help with financial expenses during this time.
If you’re ever in a road rage incident, it’s best to call 911, and give them your location and a vehicle description of the aggressive driver.
Law enforcement also said you should never exit your car to confront another driver because you do not know their intentions.