Now she is competing for Team USA in both the mixed teams with partner Jason Tabansky and the W1 open individuals competition where she finished 8th in ranking. 

"It's so cool. From being on my deathbed to the Paralympics is just a crazy journey. I am in awe of myself and my team,” Otto told BBC Sport. 

In 2019, Otto broke up with a boyfriend who had already been arrested for attacking her at their home in Florida. She started seeing her now boyfriend, Ricky Riessle, when her jealous ex broke into her house and attacked both of them with a knife and a high-powered pellet gun.

The attacker shot Riessle twice in the face and stabbed him in the back, causing a lung to collapse. He then shot Otto through the left eye, before stabbing her in the back of the neck, leaving her paralysed. He then sexually assaulted her.

"And he ends up calling the police on himself and tells them that 'this is my name, this is where I'm at'. He calls me his girlfriend, but then later admits to the police that we had broken up. And he was like 'I just killed my girlfriend and her new boyfriend'. They show up, he's sitting in the driveway, and he gets taken away,” Otto recounted her ordeal.

In 2023, the ex-boyfriend pleaded guilty to two counts of burglary with assault, two counts of attempted murder in the first degree, one count of sexual battery and two counts of aggravated bodily harm. He was sentenced to 40 years in jail.

"That first year there was obviously a lot of figuring out my body, figuring out how to eat again, how do I drink water again? Eating and drinking in the beginning was a struggle (due to the injuries sustained from the attack), as was picking up my water bottle, going to the bathroom … simple, simple things,” Otto told USA Archery in an interview.

It was then that archery came into her life.

"Ricky and I were on the highway and I was sitting thinking ‘I have all of this new-found time on my hands and I don’t really know what to do with it and I don’t know how to make this productive’. So, I went online and looked up adaptive sports programs in my area and lo-and-behold archery was on that list and I turned to Ricky and I said, ‘I think I’m going to shoot archery’,” explained Otto.

She visited the All People’s Life Center in Tampa where she was introduced to Earl C. Brown who became her first coach and helped fashion a bite tab onto a Genesis bow.

"I bit on the bite tab and I was kind of falling over in my chair. But I drew back and let the arrow fly and it hit the target and I was like ‘I have to do this; I have to see this through’. I was hooked immediately.”

Her newfound passion led to her winning gold at the 2023 Para Pan American Games, which also earned her a quota slot for the Paralympic Games for the US.

"Being on that podium is a moment that I’m going to hold dear in my heart - and I’m going to cry as I’m saying this – because growing up for me wasn’t the greatest and I have a lot of goals and a lot of dreams and having that moment happen to me was just out of this world," she said of her win.