From Homeless to Hero: The Triumph of Dr. Arabia Mollette
"I've always thought doctors didn't come from the community I came from and couldn't relate to people like me."
Growing up in the projects of South Bronx to a drug-addicted father and mentally-ill mother, survival was the only thing on the mind of the future doctor Arabia Mollette's mind. "I've always thought doctors didn't come from the community I came from and couldn't relate to people like me."
Photo: Twitter/Dr. Arabia Mollette, @dramollette
Drugs infiltrated the family, virtually severing her relationship with her father and leaving her mother to raise her and her siblings alone. "There were times my father was so high he didn't recognize me," she says. By the age of 15, Mollette was living on the streets, but held tightly to the belief that an education would be her ticket out of poverty and despair. At one point she was offered several college scholarships while still in high school. Yet despite her fierce determination to make it out of the projects, tragedy came for her with other plans. By the time she was staring college, Mollette endured three separate cataclysmic events - rape, and the murder of two family members - that likely would have been the end for someone else in her shoes. But somehow, Mollette not only managed to survive, she became an ER physician and a hero and leader in her community.
Watch the video to see how this incredible story of triumph over tragedy unfolds.
Source: Modern Hero