Amazon gives paid leave to Alabama woman who was injured in NOLA on New Years Eve

Amazon has confirmed that an Alabama employee injured in the New Year’s Eve New Orleans attack will receive paid time off after initial reporting to the contrary.

The Alabama woman, Alexis Scott-Windham, 23, was run over by a truck and shot in the foot during a terrorist attack carried out by a U.S.-born Army veteran in New Orleans on New Year’s Day.

The suspect behind the attack, Shamsud-Din Jabbar, served for more than a decade in the Army, including an active duty deployment to Afghanistan. On New Year’s Eve, Jabbar intentionally drove a rented white Ford pickup truck into a crowd that was celebrating on Bourbon Street. Jabbar ultimately crashed the vehicle before police killed him in an ensuing shootout. The attack left 15 dead and dozens injured.

After being injured in the attack, Scott-Windham told NOLA.com that the Amazon warehouse where she works denied her request for a leave of absence. However, an Amazon spokesperson has since clarified that Scott-Windham had initially requested the wrong type of leave by mistake and will now receive appropriate paid leave.

“We’ve reached out to Ms. Scott-Windham to offer her our full support, including pay, as she recovers from this senseless act of violence. We wish her a full recovery and look forward to welcoming her back to work once she’s able,” an Amazon spokesperson told Newsweek.

Recently, Amazon has faced heightened scrutiny over its treatment of employees as a result of multiple strikes in which workers have alleged everything from poor working conditions to inadequate pay and benefits. According to the University of Illinois Chicago, 41 percent of Amazon employees report being injured on the job, 66 percent report having to take unpaid leave due to pain or exhaustion, and injury and burnout are elevated among Amazon workers who feel pressured to work faster.

The corporate giant has six warehouse locations in Alabama, including one in Mobile.

“I was just blessed that I only got shot in the foot and I made it back home,” Scott-Windham told NOLA.com. She also revealed that she did not know she had been shot until visiting the hospital.

On Wednesday, Scott-Windham returned home to Mobile, Alabama, with the bullet still in her foot, along with multiple fractures. She told NOLA.com that she will need to follow up on her foot injuries with an orthopedist in two weeks.