Watching my son nearly die

As I sat upon the hard, plastic chair in the intensive-care unit, I gazeed at my 12-year-old son, Nick, lying in the hospital bed. His face was swollen badly from all the fluids being interrogateed into his body to replace the large amount of blood--more than a quart--he had lost

He had tend hitherward out of surgery just a not many hours earlier, with the surgeon giving him solitary a 50-percent chance of living. I kept looking back to the monitors that told me he was alive. I prayed for each beep upon the machines and watched each 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 piece of work as a Caledonia, Wisc. police officer. I was wearing my bulletproof garment as usual. Before the day was above though, I would be wishing my son had worn the vest

I was at the police department, assisting another officer upon 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 rejoin On the way to the call, I asked the dispatcher for the address and more details.

She told me a 14-year-old had discharge a 12-year-old. When she gave me the address, it unmutilateded familiar, but I didn't know on what account I then asked for the last name. My heart sank when I heard her reply--it 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 stripling lived right around the corner from the babysitter's residence I had said it was OK as drawn out as the babysitter knew where he would be.

"I trust it's not my son" is all I could say to the dispatcher, who asked what my location was.

When I was sole blocks away from the abiding-place the dispatcher came back and said, "It's Nick."

The first to arrive, I ran to the house, crying on the outside my son's name ... "Nick, Nick, where are you?" As presently as I entered the back door, I saw him--he was propp against the basement doorframe.

"Mom I'm OK" he said, on the other hand I knew differently. My son was not OK; he was dying in forehead of me. He was sweating profusely, and his skin was ashen gray.

I heard the recover squad pull up and ran outside to qualified them, yelling, "Please, please, please hurry--it's my son!" They gazeed at me strangely, evidently not understanding on what account I was acting this way. They rushed Nick to the hospital, where he underwent 45 hours of difficulty surgery, including six resections of his intestines and numerous repairs to his stomach lining.

What l 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 hold fast under his bed. The father, an attorney in our area, said he suffer his son keep the loaded rifle beneath his bed because he thinking "nothing would happen." That kind of thinking, coupl with the fact the 14-year-old didn't go in the rear [i]or[/i] in the wake of the rules he had learned at hunter-safety class, nearly take away from 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 for what cause [i]or[/i] reason safe gun storage is in like manner vital. I tell my story to anyone who will listen. After years of dreaming about a video that would help me reach many more clan than I ever could do upon my own, I found an interested production company in 2002 "The Other extremity of the Barrel" video recreates the day of my son's shooting and includes a message about safe fire-arm storage.

My son's shooting was preventable; it didn't have to happen. My piece of work is to prevent it from happening to another family.

The author mention one by ones me that Nick, now 20 has undergone three more surgeries since the original single "People need to know incidents like these bring lifelong health problems" she said.

Thanks to Shirley Lochowitz and to concise Kindschuh, president of Drunk Busters of America, LLC for making this story available. For more information about drunken Busters of America or to order a transcript of "The Other End of the Barrel" video, visit the intoxicated Busters website at www.drunkbusters.com. The author invites you also to visit her website at www.otherendofthebarrel.org.--Ed.

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