A Boomer and GenXer Walk into a Bar
Wit and wisdom, some smart assery, and a Mother and Daughter questioning “Are we even related?”
A Boomer and GenXer Walk into a Bar
A Parent's Nightmare Part 2: "I am so sorry Mom" S1: E8
How do you find hope in the darkest moments? We invite you to join us on a deeply personal journey as we recount the heart-wrenching events surrounding a school shooting that forever changed our family. Hear our story of rushing to a hospital under lockdown, grappling with the devastating news of Corey's multiple gunshot wounds, and the overwhelming chaos that ensued. We share the emotional rollercoaster of juggling communication with other victims' families and the outpouring of messages from a supportive community.
email: boomerandgenxer@gmail.com
Today's episode comes with something we've not done before a trigger warning, because today we are going to address the proverbial elephant in the room. So if you have young kids, please listen with caution or have them leave the room, because today's episode will talk about injury, death, mental health, suicide and school shootings. So please listen at your own discretion and if this is one episode you just don't want to or can't listen to, we completely understand. We still love you all.
Speaker 2:Welcome, welcome, welcome everyone to today's show. Boomer and Gen X are walking into a bar, coming to you from the Rabbit Hole Studio, where you, as our listener, will experience some wit and wisdom, some smart assery and a mother and daughter questioning. Are we even related? My name is Jane Burt. My co-host is my daughter, bobbi. Say good morning, bobbi, good morning. And this is part two of the Elephant in the Room. We talked to you on part one about, as everybody is aware now, if you listen to part one, school shooting that our family was involved in this year, and we're going to continue with where we're at now. And this is a happy time for us because you're going to find out that Corey is doing really well. So I'm just going to throw that out there right now. He is not doing as good as perfect by any stretch of the imagination, because he still is going through a lot. But, bobby, talk to us about what happened once you got to the hospital.
Speaker 1:Okay. So once we got to the hospital, well, I can say this I walked in, I didn't walk in, I ran in uh, found out the hospital was on lockdown in the worst way possible and I was about two minutes behind you and found that same thing happening when they grabbed me.
Speaker 2:Yeah, when the officer grabbed me too.
Speaker 1:So and they, once they kind of got me wrangled in, they said you know you need to go to the chapel and yep, and this is where we're kind of staging you know, any of the parents and family members that are coming in?
Speaker 2:and this was a trauma center in Des Moines and I just have to say I don't mean to cut you off by any stress mercy trauma center it's a mercy trauma center and we could not have been more pleased with their service, their professionalism and uh the trauma center, uh professionals, doctors, nurses everybody, all of them that I mean it was, it was phenomenal and I just can't say enough for that trauma center anyway, sorry I didn't mean to interrupt you no, it's all right.
Speaker 1:So got into the hospital, they told me, you know, we're going to go to the chapel, and at that point my sister was there, my dad was already there and literally not a few minutes after I had walked in, you walked in, right, right, and that's where they staged us and said you know, we're, we're getting them unloaded and we're then we'll come get you Right. And so you know, it gave us just a couple of minutes to pray, to pray to, for me, honestly, to really kind of breathe for a second.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I could feel that with you. You know, being probably the resident faith person in the family, you know my first instinct was to put my arms around everybody and say let's pray. And we did, and we're just so, so grateful. And what happened next, Bobby?
Speaker 1:You know, then we got to go back. We saw Corey. They didn't know all of the extent of his injuries so they had to take him back for a scan. At that point, you know, we were just kind of trying to focus on him and kind of piece together things of you know, his injuries and things like that, so got him a scan and I was learning things as this was going along, uh, because I did have my son's phone at that time and so you know his phone was just going off left and right, just blowing up his friends. You know, corey, please message us. Are you okay, corey? Where are you? Are you? You know, cause they knew he was in the lunchroom that morning, sure, and uh, unfortunately, two of his friends, uh, were actually sitting at the table with him and were both also injured, uh, at that time.
Speaker 1:So you know how kids are I mean, especially in a small town, that that phone tagline is very short and it moves very quickly. So at this point you know I'm focusing on Corey and what the doctors are saying and at the same time I'm gathering information off of his phone, my phone, you know everything we could. And finally the doctors come back in and said that basically the extent of his injuries. And so he had a total of 14 holes in him. At least nine of them were entry wounds. So he was shot nine times Right. One bullet went completely through his right arm and broke his wrist, ricocheted off the bone.
Speaker 1:Yep Broke his wrist and left a bunch of shrapnel in there. And one bullet went through the side of his leg, right through behind his kneecap, blew his kneecap out and actually broke his femur bone. So that was just two of them, and we found out that now this is going to be a little graphic here. So buckle up. One shot he actually got shot in the groin, and that bullet was sitting, they believed, right behind one of his testicles and they were afraid that the scan couldn't show the damage. They were afraid they were going to have to go in and remove his testicle at the same time that they were trying to fix his leg, because the one that went through his leg I mean it, decimated behind his knee, his leg.
Speaker 1:Because the one that went through his leg I mean it decimated behind his knee absolutely just ripped it apart, left a giant um air bubble behind his leg, broke his femur bone and he the rest of the bullets were his hips, the back of his legs, um those kinds of things, and um those kinds of things, and his upper thigh, his upper thighs, yep and just, we know now why he was shot where he was, uh, and I'll share that with everybody later, uh, but you know, at this point we were just trying to get him situated, you know is, is he okay?
Speaker 1:Did it hit any arteries, right? You know things like that. We knew we were looking at one surgery, you know, with the one shot to his groin, we were worried about another one. But they said you know, we're going to go, we're going to get him into the surgery for his leg. And you know, before they did that, of course they had to clean out all the wounds and that was horrific. Uh, we did have everybody leave the room, except Corey did ask me to stay and I I will never, ever forget that.
Speaker 2:One thing I do remember uh from, and it was so traumatic. I mean it's just hard to fathom that it could happen to you and your family, but Corey was laying there with nine bullets, eight bullets. Nine, nine bullets in him, Yep. And he looked at Bobby and said I'm sorry, Mom.
Speaker 1:I'm sorry, and at the time I didn't understand, because he had said that in the ambulance too. And then he looked at me and he said, Mom, those kids were so small. I am so sorry, they were so small. And I'm thinking, my God, how many kids did he see get shot? So, and that was the first thing through my mind, because he was, you know, he was out of it, he had had a lot of blood loss at that point Right, and you know he was delirious, he was in shock.
Speaker 2:We didn't know what he was saying. We had no idea Until later.
Speaker 1:He just kept apologizing Mom, I'm so sorry and I'm like Corey, why do you have to be sorry about? And then he looked at me and he goes. I think I should have done more and I broke.
Speaker 2:I broke right there and this tells you about the character of my grandson, and it isn't just because he's my grandson because I got some really shitty attitude. Grandkids don't laugh, bobby, because the youngest one is yours. Yes, um, they'd have really, you know. I mean, let's face it, some kids have really bad behavior and they have really bad's face it. Some kids have really bad behavior and they have really bad attitudes, right, and some kids have really great attitudes and some have just normal kid attitudes and that's okay some grow out of it, some grow into it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, some grow into it and the fact of the matter is is every day I am so impressed with the character of cory. I have not seen such a loving, caring heart as this kid has and I will say his older sister that was there that day.
Speaker 1:I, I would say the same thing about her too.
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely, yeah, absolutely, but in this context context in this situation, and you know what we found out later, and I'm just going to jump ahead just a little bit here. What we found out later was that when the shooting started, cory stood up to protect these other kids, and so he was saying I'm sorry, because he felt he could have saved more and he was sorry because he got hit so many times covering these kids.
Speaker 1:He thought I was going to be mad at him he's in some other parallel universe, where that, yeah, is okay.
Speaker 2:I don't know but he did.
Speaker 1:He stood up at the table he was at and he covered these kids, he covered one of his friends that was at the table and as he was leaving, as he was running out of the lunchroom and I found this out later through messages and things, um, from other parents, from other witnesses, from the kids themselves there was a group of middle schoolers who were coming around the corner, and it's an open air lunchroom, so you come around the corner, you can see the whole lunchroom I mean, you're just right there.
Speaker 1:And they said that they had heard something, but they didn't recognize it as gunshots, and so they continued around the corner. And as soon as they came around that corner, cory was right there and he literally put his arms out and made himself as big of a target as he could and told those kids you've got to run, you have to run.
Speaker 2:There's a shooter.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I found out even later that the vice principal, who was in the lunchroom at the time, who ran for the office to sound the alarm, um, you know that there was a lockdown, there was a shooter, he he came up to us, uh, down, there was a shooter. He. He came up to us, uh, last month, and personally thanked cory, because after we had watched all the videos and everything in that day, he had to watch them too, and he realized that cory got hit as he was in front of the vice principal as well.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so, and then he ran out of the and then he ran out of the school on a broken femur bone bleeding.
Speaker 1:Nine bullets nine bullets and he ran a football field away to the stadium and still on the phone, with 9-1-1. And he was the first one. He was the first call to 911 that day.
Speaker 2:So pretty amazing. Uh, we're not in. And you know, I'm just going to say that a lot of people have said, oh, he's a hero, and in my book he is a hero, and in Bobby's book he is a hero in our whole family and anybody who knows him. And one of the things that his grandfather had said which I didn't even think of at that time is he looked at me and he said thank God he's six foot four. And I said what? And he said, had he been shorter, they'd have shot him right in the chest. Another thing to be thankful for right Absolutely. Another thing to be thankful for right absolutely. And so we, cory and bobby, both did receive a lot of text messages, calls saying thank you for protecting my child, thank you for what you did. And cory didn't know that that's what he was doing. And people have called him, um, a hero. And he is a hero, there's no question about it. But with that I just want to caution.
Speaker 1:It's a heavy thing, it's a heavy, heavy burden to bear and he's even said you know, he said ma, he told me one day he goes, mom, he goes, everybody's calling me a hero, he goes. How do I live up to that exactly?
Speaker 2:how do I have I live up to that? We had this conversation, didn't we?
Speaker 1:He's now 16 years old. He turned 16. Two weeks after the shooting Six days after he left the hospital and he's like Mom. I don't think I can live up to that. And I looked at him and I said, buddy, you already lived up to it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you don't have to live there's nothing to live up to, and that's what you know.
Speaker 2:We've really taken the time to talk to other people about this and we've asked them please don't put that label on him. We're very appreciative of what we, what he did. We're very appreciative of him. We're more appreciative that he's alive, right? I mean, that's, that's what our gratitude is and what our overwhelming blessing has been. But we have asked please, please, refrain from calling him a hero, because this kid doesn't need to live up to a title. He did what he felt he needed to do at the time, a lot more than I would have been able to do, a lot more than you would have been able to do, probably.
Speaker 1:I mean, we don't know without even thinking he did it and is he?
Speaker 2:is he a hero? Absolutely, he'll always be a hero in in my book, though we just ask people please, please, don't make him live up to that. We don't want. We want him to be a kid. We want him to be able to live his life as normal as he possibly can. Now. Now, with that. With that said, let's talk about that.
Speaker 1:Let's do talk about that. Let's move forward here and we're going to talk about let's talk before we do that, Bobby.
Speaker 2:Let's talk about who all was. How many were injured, and we had some deaths. We had a couple of deaths in that shooting. So let's talk about that real quick. How many were there?
Speaker 1:So there were two deaths total. And that was the principal. So well, the first death was the sixth grader, a boy, 11-year-old. His name was Amir Okay and he died immediately and he was the first one who was shot, okay. The second one was principal dan marburger um. He confronted the shooter after everybody heard the first shot and they kind of realized what was going on. He confronted the shooter, he was shot multiple times in the face chest and he survived for 10 days before he passed.
Speaker 2:And then how many others were injured?
Speaker 1:So there were a few injuries that were superficial, like you know, as a result of the running the glass things like that, but the actual shooting injuries. There were four children who survived. Okay, and Corey is my son. He's one of them, two of his best friends who were sitting at the table with him and the little girl that was in the ambulance with us.
Speaker 2:Okay, and and so a lot, of, a lot of people impacted, a lot of families impacted, with this shooting. And you know, I just want to touch on this. I don't know how much more you're going to go into here, bobby, but you know, when some of the previous shootings occurred at the schools, you heard a lot of people say did they really happen? I think it's a hoax, oh.
Speaker 1:I think it's a political ploy. The biggest, most heartbreaking one was Sandy.
Speaker 2:Hook, yes, and I heard a lot of people saw it on social media and said you know, this can't be true, because we saw these kids two weeks later, or you know just things like it's not true, it's a political ploy. Let me make it very clear, folks this was, this is true. This is absolutely true. Our family experienced it. It will be something that has devastated us for the rest of our lives.
Speaker 2:Um, so many families impacted in this community and a small community, a very small community, a primarily hispanic community, and very poor community at that. They don't have a buttload of money, and you know it's, it's just crazy. And here's the other thing that I do want to touch on too, and then I'm going to let you get to where cory and joey are now. Okay is, I knew this would happen, but I mean, when we were standing in the hospital, bobby and I looked at each other and I said we're not talking to the media and she said you're damn right, we're not. And the reason we're not talking to the media is because we know they're hate mongers and the media is looking for a story. They don't give a rat's ass about you and I, how our kids are doing, what's going on in the community. I'm terribly sorry, but you're hearing the boomer come out in me now, but they don't give a crap about us.
Speaker 1:All they want is a story and if hate, can draw a story.
Speaker 2:That's exactly where they're going and they're going to twist it. And they're going to twist it and then after that, somehow it'll be our fault, yep. And so Bobby and I looked at each other and I said we're not talking to the media. And she goes no, we're not talking to the media. And we made that promise and we didn't. We didn't talk to the media and we had some pretty high level media people yes, I don't know how they get our cell phone numbers, but they can get them and they contacted both Bobby and I and I don't know who else Doesn't matter, but they asked us for a story and we immediately said no and hung up. We had the local folks ask us. We immediately said no. We had people say you know, if you talk to the media, especially the national media, you would get more national attention. Yeah, you know what They'd turn it on us Bullshit, that's bullshit.
Speaker 1:So terribly sorry to say it that way, but that's exactly what it is, and that's not the thing to say to a parent who has a child in the hospital. We don't care At that point our life is in that room, right?
Speaker 2:And so we said no, we said absolutely not. We're not doing it now. Here's, here's. The saddest part of this is that immediately people start collecting funds and I knew this would happen the second I started hearing so and so, or this bank is collecting money for these families. Those families don't get that money no, it's been a battle it's been a battle it's been almost a year and you haven't seen a dime have you?
Speaker 1:we, we just now, within the past month, have gotten it going, let's say, on distribution of the funds and who deserves them, but that's only one location.
Speaker 2:right, that's correct. There are multiple people collecting funds. Where those funds went, we have no idea.
Speaker 1:I will say there was one person and she stepped up and she said yeah, if you guys want to donate, I will make sure the families get it. That was the only person who showed up at that hospital with gift cards and food and gas cards and anything else that she could collect for the families to make it easier for us, because these families had to take care of their kids.
Speaker 2:They couldn't go to work. No, you're a single mom, she couldn't go to work. No, she almost lost her job because of this. She couldn't go to work. No, you're a single mom, she couldn't go to work. No, she almost lost her job because of this. She couldn't go to work. Those bills still had to be paid and I will say thank God for the angels here in our own family and in our own circle, because we immediately put a QR code out there and said I want you to know this is only for my kid and my grandson and granddaughter. Please know we are not doing this for the community. I'm asking you, if you want to help, please do, and God bless our family and our friends who stepped up and provided funds to help you get where you needed to be so you could get back to work Absolutely, and had that not happened it would have been a sad situation.
Speaker 2:So we'd be home real quickly let's talk about, um, where, where cory is? Yeah, real quickly. We're running out of time and I didn't mean to keep going. Okay, let's talk about where cory's at now.
Speaker 1:Cory has had two surgeries on his knee so far. Um unfortunately we may be looking at a third right. We're not sure just because of the pain level. Corey still has seven bullets in him.
Speaker 2:He has a multitude of areas of shrapnel and they can't take them out right, they can't, they can't, no, they would do more damage of his life with those in him, correct, correct.
Speaker 1:But when they do, if they do work themselves to the surface, we're we're gonna go in, we're gonna get them. You know we're gonna get them out of them, um, but you know, it's mentally, mentally all three of my kids that were there with me and there that day. It's a struggle, it's a struggle every. You know a lot of the military veterans. Things like that have reached out to Corey, thank God, because they know what he's going through Right.
Speaker 2:And and I I didn't mention those uh groups we had a lot of the bikers. Uh, her families are motorcyclists and we had a lot of the bikers and they contributed a lot.
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 2:And they came to the door and I mean they came to the door, Literally pulled up at our front door. Absolutely, they did everything they possibly could. We had a lot of those folks who stepped up for us too.
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 2:So thank you. All I can say is thank you to everybody, because we had so much love come forward for us and we appreciate it so much. I'm sorry, Bobby.
Speaker 1:No, it's okay, but you know the surgeries, he's still in physical therapy. You know we're almost nine months out now and he's still in physical therapy, still in a lot of pain. A lot of pain. Nightmares, flashbacks, you know, both the older kids have them. Uh, they go to therapy. All three of my kids go to therapy once a week minimum. You know that that was required. I said you're not getting out of this. We're starting therapy immediately, right, and we're going until until we need to stop.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you know, if it's 10 years, if it's 20 years, this is a lifelong thing. You know, cory, cory is never going to run normally again, right. Cory's never going to play sports, right, he's never going to do a lot of things, but working through what he's going to have to work through, working through what both him and his sisters are going through, and myself and you as well, absolutely Um, it's going to give him the opportunity to hopefully one day be able to reach out to someone else. I mean, you know, god forbid this happens again. But let's be real, let's be real.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 1:Okay, right, hopefully this is going to allow him to be in a position to reach out to a kid, because there's no playbook for this. It's not like there are, you know, hundreds of thousands of people who have experienced this. It's a thank God. It's a very small number. It's growing every day, but it's a very small number that knows what he's going through right now and hopefully that leads him to a path of where he can eventually step out of what he's going through and help others.
Speaker 2:Absolutely, and he would be a great, great person to do that, to help other people to deal with any type of trauma that they've had, such as this.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and the main thing is, I mean he's just really got to get healthy himself.
Speaker 2:Absolutely so again, we're very thankful. Um, that was our, that's our story, and you know there's a few other things that we're going to touch on in later shows, because you know gun control and where we stand with that Right, because we had a lot of people who ask us about that after the shootings and I think you'll be surprised as to what our position is today. So I think we're out of here for today.
Speaker 1:Bobby, I think so, and we appreciate all of you joining us here at the Rabbit Hole Studio. Be sure to follow us. We look forward to spending time with you each week. Please like us, and if you have a positive feedback for us, or if there's a show topic that you think that we should touch on, drop us a line at boomer and gen xer at gmailcom, and if you have hate mail, well, you know where you can put that. So until next week, I'm Bobbi Joy and I'm Jane Burt.
Speaker 2:And you're stuck with us. Peace out Later.