Hit-and-run victim’s condition deteriorates
The family of Andrew Tyler, the 71year-old crossing guard severely hurt by a hit-and-run driver, says the beloved father and grandfather is in dire condition after having a second leg amputation.
Tyler has been unconscious since the crash, his daughter Deborah Tyler-Haywood said.
“Everything is broken,” she said. “His legs are gone, his right shoulder and ribs are broken. It was just too much for him.”
Tyler-Haywood said the family is preparing to remove life support on Wednesday in accordance with her father’s previously stated wishes. Her sister, Sharon, told WISN-TV (Channel 12) she was still holding out hope for his recovery.
Police are still searching for the driver
who hit Tyler as he was walking to his post at Kluge Elementary School about 6:30 a.m. Nov. 10.
The driver was in a burgundy car and fled the crash in the 7200 block of W. Carmen Ave.
Their father has always been committed to young people, Tyler-Haywood said. He taught at Peckham Junior High School and then at Washington High School before working at Delphi Automotive.
After he retired nine years ago, he became a crossing guard with the Milwaukee Police Department.
He also was active in the civil rights era, serving as an NAACP commando to protect those who marched for fair housing in Milwaukee, she said.
Tyler loved barbecue, watching old John Wayne movies and camping. He worshiped at All Saints Catholic Church and has performed in the choir there since 1980.
Tyler-Haywood, his eldest daughter, remembered how as a young girl she would pretend to be asleep on the couch so her dad would carry her to her room.
“I think he knew I was faking after a while,” she said. “He’s just a real caring person, real quiet but real strong, physically and by just being a presence in our life.”
It’s the second time tragedy has befallen the family in recent years. In December 2011, Tyler’s namesake grandson, Andrew Tyler, 24, was shot and killed during a burglary at his Milwaukee apartment.
The younger Tyler came home, found the intruders and offered all he had — a twenty dollar bill — and was backing up when he was shot multiple times. The gunman was convicted and sentenced to 35 years in prison.
Tyler-Haywood is asking for the driver in the hit-and-run to surrender. Milwaukee police say the car was a burgundy, four-door 1997-2001 Buick Park Avenue or LeSabre.
“If the person came forward, he would forgive that person,” she said of her father.
“We’re trying to carry on his legacy and we would see to that, too,” she said. “Come forward and say ‘I’m sorry.’ “
An online giving page has raised more than $5,000 and is still taking donations.
The family says they will use the money to pay for his medical and possible funeral expenses, and to offer a $1,000 reward for information leading to the arrest and conviction of the driver.
Ald. Cavalier Johnson said the hitand-run crash is a reminder for everyone to think about how their actions affect others.
“Our actions not only affect a person directly, it impacts their daughters and sons and grandchildren, who in this case, wait for their father and grandfather to come home,” he said in a news release.
“The actions of the reckless prevented Andrew from doing that, and it isn’t fair,” Johnson said. “It isn’t right.”