Shot Calif. ma tells how pleas were ignored
A COURAGEOUS mother was shot five times while shielding her son during the Northern California rampage — and then ignored by several people as she begged for help.
Tiffany Phommathep, 31, was dropping off three of her kids at an elementary school in rural Tehama County when a maniacal gunman opened fire.
With her body draped around her 10-year-old son in the passenger seat, she was shot four times in the back and once in the hip, according to the local NBC affiliate.
“I just kept on praying that he’d go away because I can’t take another bullet,” Phommathep told the station. “I knew I wouldn’t make it.”
Phommathep’s children were also hurt — either shot or struck by glass — but none was injured as badly as their mom, who was bleeding and losing consciousness as she drove away from the school seeking help.
Phommathep described driving up to a woman who turned her away.
“Found some more strength to open my window, my door and I hopped out to her and asked her, ‘Can you help? I’m shot, I’m dying, and my kids are in the car,’” Phommathep recalled. “She said she couldn’t help me because she only had a two-seater and she was late for work.
“That hurt my heart a lot to hear her say that,” she added.
Phommathep said a total of four people refused her pleas for help — but the brave mother wasn’t holding a grudge. “I think they just didn’t want to get involved in case I was being, like, chased by some lunatic that was trying to gun me down,” Phommathep said.
The bleeding mother’s nightmarish ride ended when she managed to flag down a deputy sheriff’s car, according to the Los Angeles Times.
“(She) crawled out, bleeding,” her husband Johnny Phommathep said. “If it wasn’t for him, my wife wouldn’t be here.”
Her son John Jr., the 10-yearold in the front seat, was shot twice in the calf. Jake, 6, was shot in the foot while sitting in the backseat on the passenger’s side. And 2-year-old Nikos, who was sitting next to Jake, was cut by glass and nearly struck by a bullet that pierced the door beside him, the Los Angeles Times reported.
Gunman Kevin killed five people. The mass shooting began at Neal’s home when he killed his 38-year-old wife Barbara Glisan on Monday and hid her body in a hole that he cut into the floor. The following day, Neal (inset) wounded six adults and six children as he drove Neal, 44, around town in a stolen pickup truck shooting at neighbors, homes and motorists.
He was carrying two handguns and an automatic rifle when he died in a gun battle with cops after he unsuccessfully tried to barge inside the lockeddown Rancho Tehama Elementary School.
Neal, who was out on bail for allegedly shooting at and stabbing a neighbor, was not supposed to have any weapons.
Phommathep’s husband said they lived near the gunman and knew him to be dangerous.
“We’re not mad, we’re not angry,” Johnny Phommathep told the local NBC affiliate. “We just feel like things could have been prevented, but that’s out of our control.”
Three days after the shooting, Tiffany Phommathep still had a bullet lodged in her gut.
Still, her husband said he counts his family as lucky. “We’re one of the fortunate ones,” he said. “We can go home.”