The woman wounded in last year's Melbourne CBD shooting has told of her grief for the man who was shot dead trying to save her from a rampaging outlaw biker.
Former stripper Kaera Douglas told News Limited newspapers she has begun to rebuild her life since the shooting 15 months ago, in which gunman Christopher Wayne Hudson wounded her and Dutch tourist Paul de Waard and killed solicitor and father-of-three Brendan Keilar.
Mr Keilar and Dutch backpacker de Waard raced to the aid of Ms Douglas, who was being violently assaulted by outlaw biker Hudson during the busy morning peak in William Street, Melbourne, on June 18 last year.
Ms Douglas, who lost a kidney because of the shooting, said she wanted to change her life.
She said she was attending Alcoholics Anonymous meetings, volunteered for a children's charity, was attending church, had applied to study at university and wanted to become a counsellor to warn young girls about her destructive lifestyle.
"I know people will be saying, 'Who's she to be preaching to us? She's that stripper who got shot,'" Ms Douglas told News Limited. "But I've changed my life, I want to get into counselling.
"I want to say to all young girls out there who ever think of taking a drug, who ever think of dancing, dating a bikie, don't do what I did.
"It's not pretty, there's nothing glamorous, nothing cool about it."
"In your worst nightmares you could not imagine how low it was.
"But I only look forward now, not back."
Ms Douglas said she has fought anxiety, guilt and anorexia since the shooting and described the past 15 months as the worst of her life.
"I couldn't put into words what I feel for him (Mr Keilar)," she said. "There's nothing I could say that would make it better.
"How do you say, 'I'm sorry.'? How do you say, 'Thank you.'?"
She had tried to contact Mr Keilar's family but they did not want to meet her.
Hudson has appealed his minimum 35-year sentence for the shooting.
