| As I sat on the hard, plastic chair in the
intensive-care unit, I looked at my 12-year-old son, Nick, lying in the
hospital bed. His face was swollen badly from all the fluids being pumped
into his body to replace the large amount of bloodmore than a quarthe
had lost.
He had come out of surgery just a few hours earlier, with the surgeon
giving him only a 50-percent chance of living. I kept looking back to the
monitors that told me he was alive. I prayed for each beep on the machines
and watched every breath he took, then began asking myself, "How
could this have happened?"
 After dropping Nick at the babysitter's house the afternoon of Aug. 10,
1995, I had gone to my job as a Caledonia, Wisc. police officer. I was
wearing my bulletproof vest as usual. Before the day was over, though, I
would be wishing my son had worn the vest.
I was at the police department, assisting another officer on a
drunk-driving arrest, when a shooting call came in. Because it was in my
assigned area for the day, I told the dispatcher I would respond. On the
way to the call, I asked the dispatcher for the address and more details.
She told me a 14-year-old had shot a 12-year-old. When she gave me the
address, it sounded familiar, but I didn't know why. I then asked for the
last name. My heart sank when I heard her replyit was the last name of
my son's friend.
My son earlier had asked if he could visit his 14-year-old friend while
I was at work. The boy lived right around the corner from the babysitter's
home. I had said it was OK, as long as the babysitter knew where he would
be.
"I hope it's not my son" is all I could say to the
dispatcher, who asked what my location was.
When I was only blocks away from the home, the dispatcher came back and
said, "It's Nick."
 The first to arrive, I ran to the house, crying out my son's
name..."Nick, Nick, where are you?" As soon as I entered the
back door, I saw himhe was propped against the basement doorframe.
"Mom, I'm OK," he said, but I knew differently. My son was
not OK; he was dying in front of me. He was sweating profusely, and his
skin was ashen gray.
I heard the rescue squad pull up and ran outside to meet them, yelling,
"Please, please, please hurryit's my son!" They looked at me
strangely, evidently not understanding why I was acting this way. They
rushed Nick to the hospital, where he underwent 4.5 hours of emergency
surgery, including six resections of his intestines and numerous repairs
to his stomach lining.
What led to this near-death experience? Nick's 14-year-old friend had
been playing with a loaded .22-caliber rifle, which his dad allowed him to
keep under his bed. The father, an attorney in our area, said he let his
son keep the loaded rifle under his bed because he thought "nothing
would happen." That kind of thinking, coupled with the fact the
14-year-old didn't follow the rules he had learned at hunter-safety class,
nearly cost my son his life.
Because of what happened, I walked away from nearly 14 years of police
work and have dedicated my days to sharing our story and why safe gun
storage is so vital. I tell my story to anyone who will listen. After
years of dreaming about a video that would help me reach many more people
than I ever could do on my own, I found an interested production company
in 2002. "The Other End of the Barrel" video recreates the day
of my son's shooting and includes a message about safe gun storage.
My son's shooting was preventable; it didn't have to happen. My job is
to prevent it from happening to another family.
The author tells me that Nick, now 20, has undergone three more
surgeries since the original one. "People need to know incidents like
these bring lifelong health problems," she said.
Thanks to Shirley Lochowitz and to Curt Kindschuh, president of Drunk
Busters of America, L.L.C., for making this story available. For more
information about Drunk Busters of America or to order a copy of "The
Other End of the Barrel" video, visit the Drunk Busters website at
www.drunkbusters.com. The author invites you also to visit her website at
www.otherendofthebarrel.org.Ed. |
