GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. (WOOD) – Exactly two months after being shot in the head during the Kalamazoo shooting rampage, Abbie Kopf is home in Battle Creek.
The 14-year-old girl left Mary Free Bed Rehabilitation Hospital in Grand Rapids Wednesday after six weeks of daily therapy. People clapped as she walked down the hall to leave.
“Let’s go,” her mother, Vickie Kopf, said, holding Abbie’s hand. “We don’t need that stinkin’ wheelchair, do we?”
“No,” Abbie said.
Her grandmother met her at the door of her Battle Creek home and hugged her.
“Oh, honey, it’s so good to see you,” she said. “I missed you. I missed you so.”
“I missed you, too, Nana,” Abbie replied.
She couldn’t talk at all in the immediate aftermath of being shot. Her voice is still soft, bit it is clear and steady.
“I love” being home, Abbie told 24 Hour News 8 as she sat in her living room. When asked what she loved the most, she replied immediately, “I’m with my family.”
In a video produced by Mary Free Bed before she left, Abbie said she was excited to see friends and pets, including her pig, Hamlet.
“Abbie was shot almost two months ago and now she’s eating, walking, talking and almost running down the hallways now,” her mother said in the video with a laugh. “And we didn’t think that was going to be possible.”
She was the youngest victim in the Feb. 20 shooting rampage that killed Mary Jo Nye, Mary Lou Nye, Dorothy Brown, Tyler Smith and Richard Smith. Tiana Carruthers, who was also seriously injured in the shooting spree, continues to recover.
For a time, it seemed Abbie would never go home. The night she was shot, doctors at the hospital called her time of death. Then she clasped her mother’s hand.
Abbie has not talked in detail about the loss of Hawthorne or what happened to her on the night of Feb. 20, but she does know a man shot her.
She still has a long road to recovery, including reconstructive surgery to replace the portion of her skull that is missing. Her father said she will continue to see a doctor from Mary Free Bed at least until she’s 18.
The family has launched a Facebook page where they are updating Abbie’s progress often. “Home at last!” a Wednesday post read.What others are clicking on:
