Driving home in October 2008 after taking his daughter Kaitlyn, now 11, for a day of shopping and swimming, Timko became angry when another driver cut him off on the Walt Whitman Bridge near Philadelphia, and flipped the guy the finger.
Unfortunately for Timko, he picked the wrong driver to tick off. Christian Squillaciotti, a schizophrenic former Marine with a gun, responded by firing four times into Timko's car, striking him in the head. Miraculously, not only did Timko survive the shooting and manage to stop the car, but Kaitlyn in the back seat was unharmed by the bullets or shattered glass.
For both father and daughter, however, the incident has had a crippling aftermath. Timko suffered permanent brain damage and struggles with a disfiguring scar and soaring medical debts. As for Kaitlyn, her mother Lori Hardwerk, says she's never psychologically recovered. Now Kaitlyn, through Hardwerk, is suing her father for compensation, saying his road rage not only provoked his own shooting, but left her with lasting emotional scars.
Full story with news video here.
5 comments:
How disgusting, the mother (in her greed?) is just making the tragedy worse and certainly not helping her daughter. Thomas Timko is no more responsible for getting shot than a woman flirting with a man is responsible for later getting raped by that man. That means not responsible at all, for the slower people in the audience.
The shooter was acting like a horrible bastard because of his mental illness, what's this woman's excuse?
PS. Just flipping someone off can hardly be called "road rage".
*Sniff*...god bless america...pass the lawyers now, please.
This is crazy. Nice catch Insolitus, I didn't see that it was through the mother when I skimmed over this.
I was wondering what in the world would possess a young girl to sue her own father, and I believe we've found the answer.
Indeed, the headline is rather tabloidy - I'm certain it wasn't the girl's idea to sue dad, or even to blame him.
In other news, laws are being passed in several states that mental-cases are to get their guns back after being commited.
This includes schizophrenic and other similar conditions which demands medication.
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