My son sent this email out to family and friends yesterday, saturday 5/16/09 to update them on what has been happening so I thought I'd post it in his own words. He's recovering nicely and almost back to normal which is this first picture.
Day after beating.
Two weeks after beating on April 4th.
~*~
I got some good news and bad news in the past week. Since this is the first time I have written to my whole contact list, let me start at the beginning. I don't want to make this too long so I will just hit the highlights. On 4/4/09, I was assaulted by five guys at the gas station while I was filling up. I was trying to help a young lady who was getting hassled by these guys. I was knocked unconscious very early in the confrontation and don't remember too much. I do remember that as the situation started to come unhinged, I realized that it would be veeery difficult to defend myself since I was still on crutches and wearing a knee brace from having my ligament rebuilt on 3/9.
The end result of the attack was my left pupil was damaged and I have some vision problems in BOTH eyes, damage to the inner ear causing constant ringing and vertigo that persists til today, broken bone on bridge of nose and broken cheek bone which gave me the worst black eyes I have ever seen, damage to the eye socket that makes a sound whenever I blink or move my eyes, sprained left shoulder, bruised clavicle, strained right elbow, aaand I just found out this week that there is more damage to another ligament besides the one repaired in March and more damage to the miniscus which is causing it to lock so that I can't straighten it. That was the bad news this week.
I am still in physical therapy for the ligament repair and I will find out in 2-3 weeks if they will have to do another surgery to repair the knee again. Most of the head trauma is healing slowly. I am still having trouble sleeping, the ringing is as loud as ever, the headaches are getting less frequent but are still pretty severe, and the vertigo is still bothering me every time I stand up (I have to be real careful not to fall down).
But this week I finally got some good news. The police have not been answering my calls and will not return my messages. We called almost daily for the first 3 weeks and finally I got fed up. I figured that since the assault was RECORDED ON VIDEO, it should have been pretty easy to make an arrest. So I finally wrote to my city councilwoman and asked for her to put some pressure on the cops to do SOMETHING. Well I got a call this Wednesday from a Sergeant. He had gotten a call from City Hall and now he had assigned a detective the case (5 1/2 weeks after the fact). He got the tape on Wednesday night, set up a photo array line-up on Thursday, and called me today (Friday) to tell me that he had 3 of the 5 in custody and would probably have the others by Monday. What a relief! Finally some good news from the whole situation. I had, for all intents and purposes, given up on finding these dirtbags. At this point, I am so relieved to have them caught that I don't even care if they go to jail (of course it would be a bonus). At least they know they didn't get away with it. I wish I could have seen their faces when the cops showed up to arrest them. They HAD TO HAVE THOUGHT that they had gotten away with it after 6 weeks. And I hope to get them in civil court to recoup some of the medical costs, too.
So things are looking up. Still a few problems but I am feeling better and the therapy is doing some good. I appreciate all the messages from everyone. I know I haven't been prompt with replies this past week but there are so many things going on and so many good wishes coming in from everyone. Thanks to all who keep me in their prayers but please don't forget to pray for the guys who did this. As much as I need your prayers, I think they need them more.
Day after beating.
Two weeks after beating on April 4th.
~*~I got some good news and bad news in the past week. Since this is the first time I have written to my whole contact list, let me start at the beginning. I don't want to make this too long so I will just hit the highlights. On 4/4/09, I was assaulted by five guys at the gas station while I was filling up. I was trying to help a young lady who was getting hassled by these guys. I was knocked unconscious very early in the confrontation and don't remember too much. I do remember that as the situation started to come unhinged, I realized that it would be veeery difficult to defend myself since I was still on crutches and wearing a knee brace from having my ligament rebuilt on 3/9.
The end result of the attack was my left pupil was damaged and I have some vision problems in BOTH eyes, damage to the inner ear causing constant ringing and vertigo that persists til today, broken bone on bridge of nose and broken cheek bone which gave me the worst black eyes I have ever seen, damage to the eye socket that makes a sound whenever I blink or move my eyes, sprained left shoulder, bruised clavicle, strained right elbow, aaand I just found out this week that there is more damage to another ligament besides the one repaired in March and more damage to the miniscus which is causing it to lock so that I can't straighten it. That was the bad news this week.
I am still in physical therapy for the ligament repair and I will find out in 2-3 weeks if they will have to do another surgery to repair the knee again. Most of the head trauma is healing slowly. I am still having trouble sleeping, the ringing is as loud as ever, the headaches are getting less frequent but are still pretty severe, and the vertigo is still bothering me every time I stand up (I have to be real careful not to fall down).
But this week I finally got some good news. The police have not been answering my calls and will not return my messages. We called almost daily for the first 3 weeks and finally I got fed up. I figured that since the assault was RECORDED ON VIDEO, it should have been pretty easy to make an arrest. So I finally wrote to my city councilwoman and asked for her to put some pressure on the cops to do SOMETHING. Well I got a call this Wednesday from a Sergeant. He had gotten a call from City Hall and now he had assigned a detective the case (5 1/2 weeks after the fact). He got the tape on Wednesday night, set up a photo array line-up on Thursday, and called me today (Friday) to tell me that he had 3 of the 5 in custody and would probably have the others by Monday. What a relief! Finally some good news from the whole situation. I had, for all intents and purposes, given up on finding these dirtbags. At this point, I am so relieved to have them caught that I don't even care if they go to jail (of course it would be a bonus). At least they know they didn't get away with it. I wish I could have seen their faces when the cops showed up to arrest them. They HAD TO HAVE THOUGHT that they had gotten away with it after 6 weeks. And I hope to get them in civil court to recoup some of the medical costs, too.
So things are looking up. Still a few problems but I am feeling better and the therapy is doing some good. I appreciate all the messages from everyone. I know I haven't been prompt with replies this past week but there are so many things going on and so many good wishes coming in from everyone. Thanks to all who keep me in their prayers but please don't forget to pray for the guys who did this. As much as I need your prayers, I think they need them more.
