Young and innocent victims of gun violence continue to struggle even after their physical wounds heal.

Caheri Gutierrez is one of those victims.

"I have a deformity now and I have to see it every day," she said.

Gutierrez's life changed four years ago at the intersection of 98th Avenue and San Leandro Boulevard in East Oakland.

She was 18-years-old at the time, a striking beauty who was working as a model, when a friend who was driving her to help her mother pulled up to the stoplight.

"The next thing that happened was something I thought would never happen to me," she said.

A bullet fired through the back windshield of the car and ripped into her jaw, cheek and mouth.

"I touched my face and my hand slumped into my face," she said. "I sat back and all on the dashboard I saw my cheek, my bone. I saw teeth."

Gutierrez's case remains unsolved. She's had her jaw reconstructed and now works as a violence prevention educator for Youth Alive in Oakland, an organization that's helps victims of violence get back on their feet.

She also helps 18-year-old Briana Dunn in her recovery.

Briana was shot in the foot last year waiting for a bus after school in East Oakland. The bullet was meant for someone else.

"I had nightmares the shooter was going to come back and finish the job," Dunn said.

Neither Dunn nor Gutierriz's stories ever made the news, but they are part of an ever-growing army of young people shot on the streets of Oakland.

The casualties include a 5-year-old shot to death near his father's taco truck, a three year-old killed by a stray bullet and one year-old shot in a crowd of people.

There has been public outrage over those shootings, but the bullets continue to fly.

According to police records, as of October there were 656 shootings in Oakland this year alone -- an average of more than two a day.

So far this year, 97 of those gun victims were juveniles, about 10 a month.

Tammy Cloud is an intervention specialist for a program run by Youth Alive, the only program in Oakland that contacts victims in their hospital rooms and gets them help.

She said she's disturbed that so many victims feel it's almost normal to catch a bullet.

"Even as victim you're kind of numb to it, thinking that's what happens in my community people get shot," Cloud said.

But she said Youth Alive does help victims cope with the trauma. Caheri Guiterrez was one of its clients.

Another resource available for victims is the District Attorney's victim witness assistance program.

"It takes years sometimes to get to what I call a new normal," said Tasia Wiggins, a victim of violence in the witness assistance program. "That extends to the community because each individual is experiencing it."

Dunn is in college and considering becoming a social worker and hoping to get past what happened.

"It's always going to be with me," Dunn said. "But, it doesn't have to be something that's going to stop you from continuing with your life."

Gutierrez is studying to become a nurse.

"You understand what happened to you, but you will never forget," she Gutierrez added.