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RICHMOND, VA (WWBT) -
A call to 911 from a dying Richmond 15-year-old may have helped save the life of his mother after she was shot five times by her ex-husband.
Keisha Valentine is from Richmond but says she moved to North Carolina to escape an abusive husband. She was living there when she was shot and her son was killed.
"There's still a bullet in my backside that comes through my ribs to the front," said Valentine, who says there's also a second bullet still inside her.
One of the bullets hit her right on a tattoo that reads, "Have faith and hope and be strong." Those are words, she says, she lives by.
She's bound to a wheelchair because of it -- but she's alive because of her son, Earl.
Valentine said of her son "he would give his all like my dad would give his all. And him being 15, yes he took on a heavy load of responsibility." It was a responsibility he carried nobly.
After Keisha Valentine's marriage broke up and her father passed, Earl Valentine III became the man of the house.
Earl recorded a video the day they saw his older sister, Debonet, off to college. In the video Earl tells the camera, "hopefully you keep this in memory for when you go to college, you'll be able to watch this and remember your brother when you go to college."
"When we look back at that video today, I would have no idea that my son would've been the one that was leaving us and she was the one going to college. When we look at that, we just cry," Valentine said.