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A woman shot in an horrific nightclub attack has told how BELLY DANCING helped her heal from the traumatic assault.

Nurjahan Boulden, 36, was on the roof terrace of the Volume nightclub in Toronto, Canada, when a gunman opened fire. She was shot in the shin, leaving her lower leg shattered, and waited 30 minutes for paramedics to arrive, lying on the ground next to a man who died in the gang-related shooting.

Nurjahan started belly dancing as a child from the moment she learned to walk, but did not dance again for 10 years after the shooting as she found it too painful. But she now credits the sensual dance, as well as sharing her story, with helping her recover emotionally and physically from the attack.

Mother-of-three Nurjahan, from Los Angeles, California, even teaches belly dancing to fellow gun violence survivors to help them recover from trauma.

The dance teacher and writer was in Toronto for a wedding in July 2006 when she and her friends decided to go to the Volume nightclub.

Nurjahan, who was 21 at the time, said: “All of a sudden I felt a vibration in my leg. There was no warning that anything bad was going to happen.

“I fell face down on to the concrete and I heard bullets spraying. I kept saying: ‘I got shot, I got shot’. The whole of my bottom half went numb.

“When the bullets stopped flying, I was laying there on the concrete and there was a man three feet away from me who was bleeding.

“He had been shot twice in the chest and once in the head. For 30 minutes, I lay there watching him bleed out.

“When the paramedics came, they put a tarp over him so I knew he didn’t make it.”

The police never found the gunman who killed one man and injured Nurjahan and another party-goer that night.

Sharing the story of the shooting inspired Nurjahan to start belly dancing again.

“My leg had never fully recovered.

“I had a really hard time with insurance and doctors.

“Finally when I was 29, a CT scan revealed that there was still a hole in my bone.

“I got a rod and screws put into my leg but I still couldn’t run – I realized that the physical pain was attached to the emotional pain.

“One of my biggest fears about dancing again was that I wouldn’t be able to dance like I used to.

“So I decided to dance as sillily and wildly as possible down a public street to get over that fear.

“I did that three times a week for six months until I was able to run again and play soccer and belly dance.”