A News 12 reporter is sharing her story of domestic violence abuse during National Domestic Violence Awareness Month. 

A sobering statistic shows that, on average, nearly 20 people per minute are physically abused by a partner in the U.S.

The abuse can happen to anyone - from all walks of life - even a popular television reporter.

Over the years, Turn To Tara has shared the stories of many survivors of domestic violence, but this one hit extremely close to home.

It's the harrowing story of abuse and survival, and it involves one of our News 12 reporters. 

Blaise Gomez has been on News 12 for years, but behind all her memorable on-air moments, there was a time when the award-winning reporter was hiding a very dark secret. 

She spent two years in a violence-fueled relationship that she says nearly claimed her life. 

"Everything was flashing before my eyes. I thought it was going to be a murder-suicide," she says. 

Gomez survived and is now sharing her painful past in a sit-down interview for the first time.

"Coming here, I had to keep telling myself that I'm doing this to help other people because just thinking about it, I start to shake uncontrollably and, you know, I get nervous," she begins. 

Gomez says she met him in 2016, and he presented himself as a "down-and-out Marine veteran, someone who just deserved a second chance."

She says in the is beginning, everything was perfect. Just two months into their budding romance, he proposed to her. 
Gomez also remembers the first time he was violent with her. 

"We were on vacation in Disney, and he was intoxicated, and we were arguing over a phone call that I had gotten from an old friend. He picked me up and threw me on the bed. And when I was trying to get him off of me, he kind of snapped my knee to the side, and I heard a loud pop in my knee. And so, I went up driving myself to the hospital and I had a sprained knee and a knee brace for a couple of weeks," she recalls.

What Blaise had hoped was a one-time fluke incident, eventually morphed into a pattern of abuse and a pile of police reports after the couple got married in July 2017.

"The first time he strangled me was shortly after. I was newly pregnant with my daughter. I was about four-weeks pregnant," she says. 
She ultimately filed for a divorce a few weeks after her daughter was born. Gomez says this sent her husband into a tailspin. 

"That's when he took the machete out. And he put my hand on the machete and he put it up to his neck with my daughter in my arms. And he said, 'If you're going to leave me, go ahead and just kill me now.' And so, I agreed again to scale back on my efforts to seek safety again," she says. "And that decision almost killed me because a few months later, he tried to kill me."

Gomez says the incident occurred on St. Patrick's Day 2019. 

"He grabbed me by my hair, and he put me in a chokehold. I could hear the follicles popping out of my skull and my scalp. And he took his free hand while he still had his hand tied in my scalp and my hair, and he took his fingers and squeezed on my trachea and squeezed it shut until I couldn't breathe. And when he did that, something snapped, and I knew that he was going to kill me. And that I had to get away, so I started screaming, screaming, screaming, screaming, bloody murder. And my son, who was only 7 at the time, came to the door. Thank God for him. He wanted to make sure that I was OK, and because of that, I was able to grab my cellphone, so I was able to call 911," she says. 

That was the day that Blaise summoned up the courage to press charges. 

Her husband is now facing three to 10 years behind bars when he's sentenced for the brutal assault in an Orange County courthouse next month. He pleaded guilty to charges of obstruction of breathing, coercion and three counts of child endangerment.

Gomez says she believes she survived the abuse to help others, which is why after nearly two years of carrying her shameful secret she once thought she'd take her grave, Blaise decided to reveal her abuse on social media two years ago. 

She says since then, she has received hundreds, if not thousands of messages thanking her for coming forward and telling her that she has helped others by sharing her story. 

"I have gotten so many survivors that have reached out and have said I've pressed charges against my abuser because of you," she says. 
Every year now, Blaise laces up for a 5K run to benefit the nonprofit group, Fearless. 

She knows each time she makes it to the finish line, she gets one step closer in her push to end domestic violence, a problem that strikes one in four women worldwide. 

"You muster up the strength and you cross that finish line and you're a survivor," she says. "It reminds me, it brings me back to that moment when I didn't think I could go anymore, but I did, and I persevered, and I achieved so much more than I could have ever imagined."

If you or anyone you know has been affected by domestic violence, you can head to News 12 and click on the Turn To Tara tab to find resources.